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Petia At E 


OF 


MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI 


Pe TWO VOLUMES 


VOLUME THE FIRST 


MACMILLAN AND CO., Limitrep 


LONDON - BOMBAY + CALCUTTA + MADRAS 
MELBOURNE 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 


NEW YORK + BOSTON « CHICAGO 
DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO 


THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Lrtp. 
TORONTO 








MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI.. 


—_—_ 





ere wear OR 


MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI 


BASED ON STUDIES IN THE ARCHIVES OF THE 
BUONARROTI FAMILY AT FLORENCE 


BY 


JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS 


THIRD EDITION 


GHAith Wortrait anv Fifty Weprovuctions of the Works of the {Haster 


IN TWO VOLUMES 
VOLUME THE FIRST 





NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


1925 





3 TO 
THE CAVALIERE GUIDO BIAGI, 


DOCTOR IN LETTERS, 
PREFECT OF THE MEDICEO-LAURENTIAN LIBRARY, ETC., ETC., 


I DEDICATE 
THIS WORK ON MICHELANGELO, 
IN RESPECT FOR HIS SCHOLARSHIP AND LEARNING, 


ADMIRATION OF HIS TUSCAN STYLE, 


AND GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS GENEROUS ASSISTANCE. 


PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 


THE first edition of this work having been exhausted 
in a space of little over three months, I take this 
opportunity of saying that the critical notices which 
have hitherto appeared do not render it necessary 
to make any substantial changes in the text. A 
few points of difference between my reviewers and 
myself, concerning opinion rather than fact, are now 
briefly discussed in a series of notes printed at the 


end of Vol. II. 
J. A.S. 


Davos Puatz, Jan. 9, 1893. 


Pew PACE, 


Tue biographer of Michelangelo Buonarroti, who is 
bold enough to attempt a new Life after the many 
which have been already published, must introduce 
his work by a critical survey of the sources he has 
drawn from. ‘These may be divided into five main 
categories: original documents in manuscript or 
edited; contemporary Lives; observations by con- 
temporaries ; Lives written during the present cen- 
tury ; criticisms. I do not intend to classify the 
whole mass of Michelangelo literature. This would 
imply a volume in itself, and to perform the task 
exhaustively would entail a vast expenditure of time 
and labour.! It is possible, however, to indicate the 
leading features of the five grand divisions I have 
mentioned in the order of their value. 

1. By far the most important of these sources 
is the large collection of manuscripts preserved 
in the Casa Buonarroti at Florence. These con- 
sist of authentic contracts, and of letters, poems, 
and memoranda, mostly in Michelangelo's own 


1 A fairly sufficient basis for the undertaking is supplied by 


Passerini’s Bibliografia, &e. 
vil 


Vill PREFACE. 


autograph; copies made by his grand-nephew, 
Michelangelo the younger, and autograph letters 
addressed by persons of all qualities to the great 
sculptor during his lifetime. The papers in ques- 
tion were preserved among other family archives 
until the middle of this century, rarely inspected 
even by the curious, and used by no professed 
biographers. Only a few specimens found their 
way by special privilege into the collections of 
Gaye, Piot, Bottari-Ticozzi, and others. In 1858 
the Commendatore Cosimo Buonarroti bequeathed 
them, together with the house and its art treasures, 
to the city of Florence, placing them under the 
trusteeship of the Syndic, the Director of the Gal- 
leries, and the Prefect of the Laurentian Library. 
This gentleman’s wife, Rosina Vendramin, of Venice, 
the widow of Thomas Grant, Esq., had devoted her- 
self to classifying and arranging the precious docu- 
ments, so that the whole collection passed over to the 
town in a fair state of preservation. By the Commen- 
datore’s will, access to the Buonarroti archives, and 
the right to divulge them, were strictly refused even 
to the learned; but this prohibition has in certain 
cases been set aside, as I shall presently describe. 
Next in importance to the Buonarroti archives is 
a large collection of Michelangelo’s letters, pur- 
chased by the British Museum in 1859 from the 


PREFACE. ix 


painter Cavaliere Michelangelo Buonarroti, nephew 
of the Commendatore Cosimo above mentioned. 
The majority of these were first introduced to the 
public by Hermann Grimm. It remains to mention 
a set of personal memoranda in Michelangelo’s 
handwriting, with letters addressed to him or 
written about him to his nephew Lionardo, pub- 
lished in a semi-private manner by Daelli of Milan 
In 1865. Finally, there exist in private libraries 
and public museums scattered letters, most of which 
have found their way into various printed works. 

On the occasion of Michelangelo’s fourth cen- 
tenary, in 1875, it was decided to give as complete 
an edition as possible of his own letters to the public. 
The Commendatore Gaetano Milanesi, Curator of the 
Florentine State Archives, undertook the responsi- 
bility of this work, and was allowed to throw open the 
treasures of the Museo Buonarroti. The result is a 
handsome volume, containing 495 documents, drawn 
from all sources, which, however it may be criticised, 
remains a monument of respectable scholarship and 
industry. It forms the principal existing basis for 
exact studies in the illustrious artist’s life-history. 

Some years before the issue of this complete 
epistolary—that is to say, in 1863—-similar license 
had been granted to Signor Cesare Guasti for the 
publication of Michelangelo's poems from the texts 


x PREFACE. 


preserved in the Museo Buonarroti. These texts 
he collated, but not completely, with a codex in 
the Vatican Library. Guasti’s volume, although 
it also has been subjected to severe criticism, 
remains the classical edition, to which every 
student must have recourse.’ It did nothing less 
than to revolutionise previous conceptions of 
Michelangelo as poet and as man of feeling. Up 
to the date 1863, his sonnets, madrigals, and longer 
lyric compositions were only known to the world 
in the falsified and garbled form which Michel- 
angelo the younger chose to give them when he 
published the first edition of the “ Rime” in 1623. 
‘The history of what may be called this pious fraud 
by a grand-nephew, over-anxious for his illustrious 
ancestor's literary and personal reputation, will be 
found in the twelfth chapter of my book. Suffice 
it here to say, that all earlier translations from the 
poems, and all deductions drawn from them regarding 
their author’s psychology, were deprived of value 
by Guasti’s publication of the originals. Michel- 
angelo’s life had to be studied afresh and rewritten 
upon new and truer data. 

Milanesi, while preparing his edition of Michel- 
angelo’s letters, used the opportunities he enjoyed 


1 The most severe attacks upon Milanesi and Quasti have been made 
by Hermann Grimm in the later editions of his Leben Michelangelo's. 


PREFACE. xi 


in the Archivio Buonarroti to make a complete 
copy of the voluminous correspondence addressed 
by persons of different degrees and qualities to the 
illustrious Florentine. Part of this valuable manu- 
script he placed at the disposal of the Bibliothéque 
Internationale des Beaux-Arts, and in 1890 there ap- 
peared an elegant small quarto volume entitled ‘‘ Les 
Correspondants de Michel-Ange. I. Sebastiano del 
Piombo. Paris: Librairie de l’Art.” It is, in fact, 
the first instalment of Milanesi’s transcript above 
mentioned, containing the Italian text of Sebasti- 
ano’s letters, with a French translation by Dr. A. 
Le Pileur. By what I must regard as an error of 
judgment, the editors omitted from their collection 
those letters of Sebastiano—one of them of great 
importance—which had previously appeared in Gaye 
and Gotti. In spite of this omission, the utility of 
the publication cannot be called in question, and I 
am grateful to it for important assistance in the com- 
position of my present work. Still, there are many 
reasons why this piecemeal and unauthoritative 
divulgation of the Buonarroti Archives should be 
regarded as unsatisfactory. Scholars are debarred 
from collating the printed matter with the auto- 
graphs; and as long as documents appear without 
the sanction of the Italian Government or that of 
the trustees of the Museo Buonarroti, it is always 


xii PREFACE. 


open to critics to dispute their textual validity. Lam, 
therefore, glad to be able to announce the fact that 
arrangements have recently been made between the 
Government and the so-called ‘Ente Buonarroti ” 
for a complete official edition of the correspondence 
in question. The value of these private letters for 
Michelangelo’s biography was proved in 1875, when 
Aurelio Gotti produced the new Italian Life, of which 
T shall make mention farther down. Nevertheless, 
it is obvious that specimens selected from a huge 
mass of documents by a few privileged students, 
and used to support their own theories, can never 
carry the same weight or inspire the same confidence 
as an authorised edition of the whole. Without dis- 
puting the accuracy of Milanesi, Guasti, and Gotti, 
and without impugning their good faith, I am bound 
to say that a personal inspection of the manuscripts 
led me to conclusions upon some points very dif- 
ferent from those which they have drawn. It is, 
therefore, greatly to be hoped that the project of 
the “Ente Buonarroti” will be carried out, and 
that their edition of the correspondence will receive 
the support it deserves from public libraries and 
amateurs of art throughout the world. 

This leads me to mention the fact that, by special 
favour of the Italian Government, I was allowed to 
examine the Archivio Buonarroti, and to make copies 


PREFACE. xili 


of documents. ‘he results of my researches will 
appear in the notes to this work, and in a certain 
number ‘of hitherto inedited letters printed at its 
close. Study of the original sources enabled me to 
clear up some points of considerable interest regard- 
ing Michelangelo's psychology, and to dispel some 
erroneous theories which had been invented to ex- 
plain the specific nature of his personal relations 
with the Marchioness of Pescara and Messer Tom- 
maso Cavalieri.” 

Before concluding this section on _ original 
documents, it is necessary to include the miscel- 
laneous correspondence, Papal briefs, contracts, 
minutes, and memoranda of all kinds, brought 
together by Gaye in the ‘‘Carteggio d’Artisti,” by 
Rottari and Ticozzi in the ‘‘ Lettere Pittoriche,” and 
by Milanesi in the “Prospetto Cronologico” appended 
to Vasari’s “ Life of Michelangelo,” ed. Le Monnier, 
1855. Minor material of the same kind, collected 
by Campori, Frediani, Zolfanelli, Fea, and others, 
for the illustration of special episodes in Buonar- 
roti’s life, will be noticed in the proper places. 

2. We possess two biographies composed by con- 
temporaries, both of them friends, admirers, and pupils 
of Michelangelo—Condivi and Vasari. The earliest 
of these is a short Life included by Giorgio Vasari 

1 See Chapter XII. of this book. 


XIV PREFACE. 


in his first edition of the “Lives of Italian Artists,” 
1550. ‘This brief sketch, though highly flattering, 
was tainted with inaccuracies and hasty statements. 
Ascanio Condivi, at that time an inmate of Buonar- 
roti’s house, felt impelled to produce a more exact 
and truthful portrait of his revered master. This 
task he executed while enjoying the privilege of 
daily converse with Michelangelo; and the little 
book, pregnant with valuable information, saw the 
light in 1553, while its subject was still living. 
Written with obvious simplicity and candour, 
it takes rank after original documents as our 
most important authority, embalming, as it does, 
the old artist's own memories of his past career. 
Vasari, though he was not directly alluded to by 
Condivi, seems to have bitterly resented the implied 
censure of his own inaccuracy. Four years after 
Michelangelo’s death he published a second and 
greatly enlarged edition of his Life, which incor- 
porated all that was valuable in the memoir of his 
Roman critic. The wide fame of Vasari’s compre- 
hensive work extinguished Condivi for the next 
two centuries. With regard to the comparative 
authority of these two biographies, I have already 
pronounced a decided opinion. It must, however, 
be remembered that Vasari’s second Life is a source 
of the highest importance on its own account. It 


PREFACE. xv 


supplies a large quantity of authentic information 
which we do not find in Condivi, communicates 
some interesting letters and poems, and abounds 
in vivid anecdotes collected during a long and 
intimate friendship with Buonarroti. In all that 
relates to Michelangelo’s later years it is invaluable 
and indispensable. 

3. Next in importance to contemporary bio- 
graphies are the notes preserved to us by personal 
friends who enjoyed Michelangelo’s familiarity. 
The Dialogues of Francesco d’Olanda and Donato 
Giannotti offer a vivid picture of his habits and 
opinions in old age. Varchi’s commentary on one 
of his sonnets and the panegyrics spoken at his 
obsequies deserve consideration. Varchi’s Floren- 
tine history, and the letters addressed to him by 
Busini, must also be mentioned here. Nor is 
Cellini’s autobiography without importance. Even 
more valuable is the side-light thrown upon Michel- 
angelo’s habits and character by correspondents. In 
this respect the letters of Sebastiano del Piombo, 
Vittoria Colonna, Tommaso Cavalieri, Lionardo 
Sellajo, Giovan Francesco Fattucci, Bartolommeo 
Angelini, Cornelia degli Amadori, Pietro Aretino, 
Daniele da Volterra, and Tiberio Calcagni, possess 
peculiar interest, flashing, as it were, from divers 
facets the reflection of one physiognomy. It would 


xvi PREFACE. 


be tedious to mention all the letter-writers who have 
helped me to round the great man’s portrait. 

4. I come now to consider the Lives which have 
been written during the last hundred years, and in 
doing so I must omit several included in encyclo- 
pedias and histories of art, as well as numerous 
sketches which do not claim more than a literary 
or appreciative merit. At the end of the last century 
a purer taste for what is really great in Italian art 
began to revive; men of feeling and culture pro- 
fessed a special devotion to the sublime. In England, 
the lectures of Sir Joshua Reynolds, of Fuseli, and of 
Opie diffused an enthusiasm for Michelangelo which 
became the special note of intellectual breeding. 
Under these influences Richard Duppa published his 
Life in 1806, accompanied by a very useful atlas of 
engravings selected from various portions of Buonar- 
roti’s works. The next Life of importance was Quatre- 
mére de Quincy’s, in 1835. John Samuel Harford, 
inspired by the study of Roscoe’s books upon the 
Renaissance, shot far ahead of these pioneers in his 
two-volumed Life, which was published in the year 
1857, together with an atlas of engravings by 
Gruner. ‘The latter portion of his work retains 
its value to the present day, especially in what 
concerns the architecture of 8. Peter's. Hermann 
Grimm, who had been engaged in the same field 


PREFACE. XVli 


simultaneously with Harford, produced the first 
edition of his famous Life in 1860. Though the 
biography of the hero is so much embedded in 
the history of Italian dynasties and wars and 
revolutions as to be almost submerged, yet this 
book marked a new departure in the treatment of 
Michelangelo. It introduced a sound critical and 
scientific method, and added large stores of docu- 
mentary material. The fifth edition, of 1875, will 
remain as a standard authority upon the subject. 
Charles Clement’s Life, which appeared in 1861, 
does not need the same consideration, although 
it is a refined specimen of French critical intel- 
ligence. Peculiar importance attaches to Aurelio 
Gotti’s “Vita di Michelangelo,” published at Florence 
in 1875. Here, for the first time, the treasures of 
the Museo Buonarroti were used freely, letters 
of Michelangelo’s correspondents being copiously 
employed to illustrate the events of his life and 
social surroundings. As literature, it does not reach 
a very high standard, nor yet can it be maintained 
that Gotti added much of true or penetrative to 
the study of his hero’s temperament. Nevertheless, 
Mr. Heath Wilson was well advised in partly trans- 
lating this Life, the documentary importance of which 
he fully realised, and in grafting his own original 


observations upon its stock. Heath Wilson’s Life, 
VOL. L b 


xviii PREFACE. 


printed in Florence, but published by Murray in 
London, 1876, contains a great deal that is highly 
valuable in the region of research into Michel- 
angelo’s technical methods and the present condi- 
tions of his frescoes. It has not yet received the 
public recognition which it amply deserves. ‘The 
book is distinguished by modesty of tone, simplicity 
of style, and sterling contributions to our knowledge 
of facts. In the same year, 1876, the editor of the 
Gazette des Beaux-Arts issued a volume of seven 
essays, composed by seven eminent French artists 
and archeologists, which must be rated among the 
most happily conceived and admirably executed 
studies which have yet appeared in Michelangelo 
literature. ‘“L’Ciuvre et la Vie de Michel-Ange” 
is a striking monument of the lively and incisive 
Parisian spirit, presenting a many-sided view of its 
complex subject. Without the unity of a biography, 
it combines under one cover the appreciations of 
several experts, all of them competent judges in 
their own departments. Special mention must 
finally be made of Anton Springer’s second edition 
of his ‘‘Raffael und Michelangelo” (1883). For 
fulness of learning, for concision, and for critical 
acumen, this is a very noticeable performance. It 
combines all that is needful of historical, biogra- 
phical, archeological, and esthetical information. 


PREFACE. xix 


Large masses of literature have been absorbed and 
condensed by the author, who does not sacrifice his 
own originality, and who presents the results of his 
extensive studies with ingenuous modesty. 

5. To speak of purely critical work in this field 
would carry me beyond the scope of a preface. 
Kugler, Burckhardt, De Stendhal, Charles Perkins, 
and countless other writers on the fine arts, have 
given excellent appreciations of the great man’s 
artistic genius. Ruskin has shown how far a 
gifted writer can miss the mark through want of 
sympathy.’ Pater has touched upon the poems 
with his usual delicacy; Niccolini, in his treatise 
on the Sublime, has written fiery passages of im- 
passioned eloquence; Michelet has sought to con- 
nect the prophecy of Michelangelo’s art with the 
political and moral death-throes of his age. I 
mention only a few of the more distinguished 
authors, in whose work penetrative acumen of one 
sort or another is combined with a real literary 
talent. Of late another school of critics has arisen, 
who, passing lightly over Michelangelo as artist, 
seek to explain his personal character by the 
methods of morbid psychology. ‘These will be 
duly considered in the proper place; but, for ob- 
vious reasons, it is impossible for me to render due 


1 See the lecture on Michelangelo and Tintoretto, 


XX PREFACE. 


account here of all the fugitive essays and critical 
expositions which have saturated my mind during 
thirty years of sustained interest in Michelangelo. 
My own previous work in this department will be 
found in the third volume of the “ Renaissance 
in Italy,” and in the preface to my translation of 
‘Sonnets of Michael Angelo and Campanella.” 

In writing the biography which follows, I have 
striven to exclude extraneous matter, so far as this 
was possible. I have not, therefore, digressed into 
the region of Italian history and comparative artistic 
criticism. My purpose was to give a fairly complete 
account of the hero’s life and works, and to con- 
centrate attention on his personality. Wherever I 
could, I made him tell his own tale by presenting 
original letters and memoranda; also, whenever the 
exigencies of the narrative permitted, | used the 
language of his earliest biographers, Condivi and 
Vasari. While adopting this method, | was aware 
that my work would suffer in regard to continuity 
of style; but the compensating advantages of vera- 
city, and direct appeal to authoritative sources, 
seemed to justify this sacrifice of form. 

I must finally record my obligations to many 
friends and scholars who have rendered me im- 
portant assistance during the composition of this 
book. First and foremost comes the Cavaliere 


PREFACE. XXxl 


Professor Guido Biagi, Prefect of the Laurentian 
Library at Florence, to whom | am in great measure 
indebted for access to the manuscripts of the Museo 
Buonarroti, who has spared no pains in furnishing 
me with exact information upon several intricate 
questions, and who copied documents for me with 
his own hand. To Professor J. Henry Middleton, 
of Cambridge, are due my sincere thanks, both for 
placing his reconstruction of the Tomb of Julius 
at my disposal, and also for reading a large portion 
of the proof-sheets as they passed through the press, 
and making many valuable suggestions. Lieut.-Col. 
Alfred Pearson and Mrs. Ross of Poggio Gherardo 
performed the same kind office of reading proofs 
and offering hints upon points of literary style. To 
Dr. Fortnum I am indebted for permission to repro- 
duce his wax model and Leone’s medal of Michel- 
angelo in old age. Professor Sidney Colvin, of the 
British Museum, allowed me to photograph eight 
original drawings existing in that national collection. 
To Mr. Edward Prioleau Warren I owe much interest- 
ing information, collected by him from old authors, 
upon difficult points connected with the Cupola of 
S. Peter's. Mr. Stillman of Rome helped me finally 
to arrive at the truth about Michelangelo’s model for 
the Dome. To his untiring kindness, and to Dr. 
Josef Durm, whose work is cited in my List of 


xxii PREFACE. 


Authorities, my gratitude is due for such accuracy 
as my account of the model in Chapter XIV. may 
possess. My friend Mr. Samuel Richards, the dis- 
tinguished American painter, assisted me with tech- 
nical and critical observations upon several intricate 
details of Michelangelo’s work, and, furthermore, 
enabled me to give the right solution of the action 
intended in the colossal statue of David at Florence. 
Finally, to Mr. Edward J. Poynter, R.A., thanks are 
owed for valuable aid afforded in preparing the illus- 
trations. Acknowledgments of courtesies extended 
to me by other gentlemen, if here omitted, will be 
found in the notes appended to the text. 


Davos Priatz, April 6, 1892. 


LIST OF SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL BOOKS 
REFERRED TO IN THESE VOLUMES. 


Le Lettere di Michelangelo Buonarroti, publicate coi Ricordi 
ed i Contratti artistici. Per cura di Gaetano Milanesi. 
Firenze: Le Monnier, 1875. Cited, Lettere. 

Le Rime di Michelangelo Buonarroti, cavate dagli Autografi e 
pubblicate da Cesare Guasti. Firenze: Le Monnier, 1863. 
Cited, Rime. 

Carte Michelangiolesche inedite. Milano: Autogratia, G. Daelli, 
1865. Cited, Carte Mich. 

Les Correspondants de Michel-Ange. No. 1. Sebastiano del 
Piombo. Texte italien publié pour la premiére fois par 
Gaetano Milanesi, avec trad. fr. par A. Le Pileur. Paris: 
Librairie de Art, 1890. Cited, Les Correspondanits. 

Carteggio d’Artisti. Giovanni Gaye. 3 vols. Firenze: Molini, 
1840. Cited, Gaye. 

Lettere Pittoriche raccolte dal Bottari e Ticozzi. Milano: 
Silvestri, 1822. Cited, Lett. Pitt. 

Les Arts en Portugal. A. Raczynski. Paris: Renouard, 1846. 
Cited, Raczynskt. 

Vita di Michelangelo Buonarroti, Scritta da Ascanio Condivi. 
Pisa: N. Capurro, 1823. Cited, Condivi. 

Le Vite de’ piu eccellenti Pittori Scultori e Architetti, di 
Giorgio Vasari, 14 vols. Firenze: Le Monnier, 1855. 
Cited, Vasari. 

The Life of Michel Angelo Buonarroti. By John 8. Harford. 
2 vols. London: Longmans, 1857. Cited, Harford. 
Illustrations of the Genius of Michael Angelo. Published for 
John §. Harford. London: Colnaghi & Longmans, 1857, 

Cited, Harford Illustrations. 


xxill 


XX1V PRINCIPAL BOOKS REFERRED TO. 


Leben Michelangelo’s. Von Hermann Grimm. 2 vols. 5th edit. 
Berlin: W. Hertz, 1879. Cited, Grimm. 

Vita di Michelangelo Buonarroti, Narrata con Vaiuto di nuovi 
Documenti da Aurelio Gotti. Firenze: Tip. della Gazzetta 
d'Italia, 1875. 2 vols. Cited, Gott. 

Life and Works of Michelangelo Buonarroti. By C. Heath 
Wilson, London: John Murray, 1876. Cited, Heath 
Wilson. 

Raffael und Michelangelo. Von Anton Springer. 2 vols, 
Leipzig: Seemann, 1883. Cited, Springer. 

L’Cauvre et la Vie de Michel-Ange. Paris: Gazette des Beaux- 
Arts, 1876. Cited, LZ’ uvre et la Vie. 

La Bibliografia di Michelangelo Buonarroti, e gli Incisori delle 
sue Opere. Luigi Passerini. Firenze: Cellini, 1875. Cited, 
La Bibliografia. 

Le Rime di Vittoria Colonna, con la Vita della Medesima da 
P, E. Visconti. Roma: Salviucci, 1840. Cited, Visconti. 

A Critical Account of the Drawings of Michelangelo and 
Raffaello in the Univ. Gall., Oxford. By J. C. Robinson. 
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1870. Cited, Robinson. 

The Sonnets of M. A. Buonarroti and T, Campanella, translated 
by John Addington Symonds. London: Smith, Elder, & 
Co., 1878. Cited, Hnglish Version. 

The Renaissance in Italy. By John Addington Symonds. 7 vols. 
London: Smith, Elder, & Co. Cited, Renaissance in Italy. 

Michelangelo’s Entwurf zu dem Karton der Schlacht bei Cascina. 
Von Moriz Thausing. Leipzig: Seemann, 1878. Cited, 
Thausing. 

Tuscan Sculptors: their Lives, Works, and Times. By C. C. 
Perkins. 2 vols. London: Longmans, 1864. Cited, 
Perkins. 

Ragionamento Storico su le diverse gite fatte a Carrara da 
Michelangielo Buonarroti. Massa, pei Fratelli Frediani, 
1837. Cited, Prediant, 

La Lunigiana e le Alpi Apuane. Studii del Professore Cesare 
Zolfanelli. Firenze: Barbéra, 1870. Cited, Zolfanellt 


PRINCIPAL BOOKS REFERRED TO. XXV 


Lettera di M. A. Buonarroti, pubblicata ed illustrata dal Pro- 
fessore Sebastiano Ciampi. Firenze: Passigli, 1834. Cited, 
Ciampi. 

Michelangelo Buonarroti (Il Vecchio): Studio di Carlo Parla- 
greco. Napoli: Fratelli Orfeo, 1888. Cited, Parlagreco. 

The Life of Benvenuto Cellini. Translated by John Addington 
Symonds. London: John C. Nimmo. Cited, Cedlens. 

Storia Fiorentina di Benedetto Varchi. 3 vols. Firenze: Le 
Monnier, 1857. Cited, Varcht. 

Lettere di Giambattista Busini a Benedetto Varchi. Firenze: 
Le Monnier, 1861. Cited, Businz. 

La Scrittura di Artisti Italiani Firenze: Pini, 1869. Cited, 
Pint. 

The Art of Michelangelo Buonarroti in the British Museum. 
By Louis Fagan. London: Dulau, 1883. Cited, Hagan. 

South Kensington Museum. Italian Sculpture of the Middle 
Ages, &c. By J. C. Robinson. London: Chapman & 
Hall, 1862. Cited, Sculpture, S.K.M. 

Michelangelo: eine MRenaissancestudie. Von Ludwig von 
Scheffler. Altenberg: S. Geibel, 1892. Cited, Von Scheffer. 

Carteggio di Vittoria Colonna Marchesa di Pescara. Raccolto 
e pubblicato da Ermanno Ferrero e Giuseppe Miiller. 
Torino: E. Loescher, 1889. Cited, Ferrero and Miller. 

Die Domkuppel in Florenz, und die Kuppel der Petruskirche in 
Rom. Von Josef Durm. Berlin: Ernst & Korn, 1887. 
Cited, Durm. 





CON DLN E>. 


VOLUME THE FIRST. 


CHAPTER I. 


PAGES 
BIRTH, BOYHOOD, YOUTH AT FLORENCE, DOWN TO LORENZO 


DE’ MEDICI’S DEATH. 1475-1492 . : ; ‘ I-39 


CHAPTER II. 


FIRST VISITS TO BOLOGNA AND ROME—THE MADONNA 
DELLA FEBBRE AND OTHER WORKS IN MARBLE. 
1492-1501 . : . : : ° ; ~ 40-85 


CHAPTER III. 


RESIDENCE IN FLORENCE—THE DAVID. I501-1505 . 86-123 


CHAPTER IV. 


JULIUS II. CALLS MICHELANGELO TO ROME—PROJECT FOR 
THE POPE’S TOMB—THE REBUILDING OF 8. PETER'S 
—FLIGHT FROM ROME—CARTOON FOR THE BATTLE 
OF PISA. 1505, 1506. : : : : . 124-174 


CHAPTER V. 


SECOND VISIT TO BOLOGNA—THE BRONZE STATUE OF 
JULIUS II.—PAINTING OF THE SISTINE VAULT. 1506— 


Petz. : ; : ; : rend a » 175-235 


XXVlli CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER VI. 


ON MICHELANGELO AS DRAUGHTSMAN, PAINTER, SCULP- 
TOR e s ° ° . J ° e e 


CHAPTER VIL. 


LEO X. PLANS FOR THE CHURCH OF §S. LORENZO AT 
FLORENCE — MICHELANGELO'S LIFE AT CARRARA. 
I 5 I at 5 2 I e e ° e e ® ° ° 


CHAPTER VIII. 


ADRIAN VI. AND OLEMENT VII.—THE SAOCRISTY AND 
LIBRARY OF 8. LORENZO. 1521-1526 . : : 


CHAPTER IX. 


SACK OF ROME AND SIEGE OF FLORENCE—MICHEL- 
ANGELO’S FLIGHT TO VENICE—HIS RELATIONS TO THE 


PAGES 


236-298 


299-364 


365-401 


MEDIOL 1527-1534 . : ‘ ° 4 . 402-469 


Mis? OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


VOLUME THE FIRST. 


- 2 i PAGE 
tr. PortRAItT oF MICHELANGELO BuonaRROTI. From an oil- 


painting in the possession of the Earl of Wemyss. Pro- 
bably one of the contemporary easel-pictures made of 
the Artist . ‘ : ; ‘ : . Frontispiece. 


> BAS-RELIEF OF THE CENTAURS, one of Michelangelo’s first 
works in marble, now preserved in the Casa Buonar- 
roti, Florence . : ‘ : : ‘ . To face 28 


3. Stupy or Anaromy. This pen-drawing is at the Taylor 
Gallery, Oxford, and shows a corpse stretched upon a 
plank and trestles, with two men bending over it with 
knives in their hands, a candle in the body of the subject 
serving as light : : : 


44 
4. Statuz or S. Jonn. This statue, now in the Berlin Museum, 
is probably the S. Giovannino made for LormNnzo DI 
PIERFRANCESCO, one of the Medici family. The statue 

was rediscovered at Pisain 1874. P : ; : 48 


s. Currp. This fine piece of sculpture, which shows Michel- 
angelo’s originality of treatment, was discovered some 
forty years ago in the cellars of the Rucellai Gardens 
at Florence. The left arm was broken, the right hand 
damaged, and the hair had never received the artist’s final 
touches, The distinguished Florentine sculptor Santarelli 
restored the arm, and the Cupid passed by purchase into 
the possession of the English nation, and is now at South 
Kensington . - : : ‘ . : ; : 64 


xxix 


XXX 


6. 


II. 


12. 


13. 


14. 


ee 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


MADONNA AND CHILD. This marble statue is in a chapel of 
Notre Dame, at Bruges. It was made during Michel- 
angelo’s early manhood, for the Mouscron family, mer- 
chants of that city . - : : . To face 


. StatuE oF Davip. This masterpiece of Michelangelo, 


wherein he first displayed that quality of spirit and awe- 
inspiring force for which he afterwards became so famous, 
stood uncovered for more than three centuries upon the 
steps of the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence. In 1873 it was 
removed to a hall of the Accademia delle Belle Arti in 
that city 


. WHOLE FigURE AND ARM OF THE DaviD, from the original 


wax models in South Kensington Museum 


. RigHt AND Lert Lrcs oF THE Davin, from the original 


wax models in South Kensington Museum 


. Rigot HAND oF THE DAVID 


DRAWING MADE FOR THE SECOND Davip, now in the Louvre, 
Paris 


BAs-RELIEF OF Hoty Famity. A circular work in marble, 
now in the Collection of the Royal Academy, London 


PicrurE oF Hory Faminy, commonly known as the Doni 
Madonna, now in the Tribune of the Uffizi, Florence 


DESIGN FOR THE ToMB oF JuLius II., made about 1513. 
The reconstruction from two drawings, one at Florence, 
the other at Berlin, is due to Professor MIDDLETON, of 
Cambridge : ‘ : ; ' ‘ : : . 


Figure or A BatueEr, from the Cartoon of the Battle of 
Pisa. A contemporary drawing from the original. In 
the British Museum . 


. OUTLINE CHART OF THE SISTINE CHAPEL 


. Puan showing the scheme for painting the Vault of the 


Sistine Chapel . 


. Srupy or THree Figures, for the ceiling of the Sistine 


Chapel. In the British Museum . ; ‘ ‘ 


PAG 


76 


83 


96 


100 


104 


108 


I12 


116 


138 


168 


200 


208 


224 


19. 


20. 


zis 


22. 


23. 


24. 


25. 


26. 


27. 


28. 


29. 


30. 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Stupy ror Apam, for the Vault of the Sistine. In the 
possession of F. Locker, Esq. . vb tah: Te fad 


Heap oF THE PropHet Isatan. Drawn by E. J. Poynter, 
R.A., from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel 


Heap or THE Duetpuic Sipyt. Drawn by E. J. mneea 
R.A., from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel 


ONE OF THE Gent, from the Vault of the Sistine Chapel . 


Srupy FOR THE ResurRxctTion. A drawing in the British 
Museum 


DRawine or A MAE Fiaure, showing Michelangelo’s marks 
for proportions. In the Royal Collection at Windsor 
Castle ‘ ; UE Pe se rte at rst) ss 


Srupy FoR THE MatEe Noupz, in the Albertina Gallery, 
Vienna 


SrupDIEs FROM THE NoupsE, in the Albertina Gallery, 
Vienna 


Srupy IN Pen anD INK FoR THE Maponna, in the Louvre, 
Paris 


THe ARCIERI, OR BersaGuio. This drawing in red chalk is 
perhaps the most pleasing and most perfect of all Michel- 
angelo’s designs, and is now in the Royal Collection at 
Windsor Castle. 


CARRARA MOUNTAINS AND MARBLE QuaARRIES. This land- 
scape, from a modern painting by CHaries H. Potine- 
DESTRE, Esq., shows the method of transporting the blocks 
of marble—a method which has changed but little since 
the days when Michelangelo worked in these quarries 


Tur RiseN Curist oF THE MineRvA. ‘This is an original 
drawing by Michelangelo, now in the possession of J. P. 
Heseltine, Esq., and reproduced here for the first time 


272 


280 


294 


298 


320 


360 


XXXII LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


31. ARCHITECTURAL Drawine. No, 1. Early sketch for the 
tombs of the Medici at San Lorenzo, Florence, showing 
two sarcophagi conjoined below a seated captain. In the 
British Museum : ; ; ‘ : . To face 


32, ARCHITECTURAL Drawine. No. 2. Late stage of one of 
Michelangelo’s sketches for the tomb at San Lorenzo, 
Florence, showing a first idea for the Statue of the Dawn. 
In the British Museum : 


33. ARCHITECTURAL SketoH. Wo. 3. If meant for the Medi- 
cean Sacristy at San Lorenzo, Florence, it indicates ideas 
for the treatment of spandrels and ceiling. In the 
British Museum : 


34. Hercutes anp Cacus. From the original wax model in 
South Kensington Museum 


PAGE 


380 


384 


384 


438 


bhi OF MICHELANGELO. 


CHAPTER I. 


1. History of the Buonarroti Simoni family, their arms and name,— 
Birth of Michelangelo at Caprese.—2. Description of Chiusi in 
Casentino and Caprese.—3. Michelangelo’s brothers.—His childhood 
at Settignano,—Sent to school in Florence.—Early passion for design. 
—Francesco Granacci.—4. Apprenticed to the Ghirlandajo brothers, 
—Stories of his youthful power as a draughtsman.—s5. Enters the 
Medicean Gardens at S. Marco,—Studies sculpture under Bertoldo. 
—Story of the Faun’s mask.—Lorenzo de’ Medici takes him into 
his own house, and appoints his father to an office.—Manner of 
life in the Casa Medici.—6. Michelangelo’s first works.—The bas- 
reliefs of the Centaurs, and a seated Madonna.—v7, Quarrel with 
Piero Torrigiano.—8. Florence under Lorenzo de’ Medici.—Public 
amusements.—Savonarola’s preaching.—Death of Lorenzo, 


1B 


THe Buonarroti Simoni, to whom Michelangelo 
belonged, were a Florentine family of ancient burgher 
nobility. Their arms appear to have been origin- 
ally ‘azure two bends or.” ‘To this coat was 
added “‘a label of four points gules enclosing three 
fleur-de-lys or.” That augmentation, adopted from 
the shield of Charles of Anjou, occurs upon the 
scutcheons of many Guelf houses and cities. In 


the case of the Florentine Simoni, it may be ascribed 
VOL, I, A 


2 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


to the period when Buonarrota di Simone Simoni 
held office as a captain of the Guelf party (1392). 
Such, then, was the paternal coat borne by the 
subject of this Memoir. His brother Buonarroto 
received a further augmentation in 1515 from Leo 
X., to wit: “upon a chief or, a pellet azure 
charged with fleur-de-lys or, between the capital 
letters L. and X.” At the same time he was 
created Count Palatine. The old and simple bear- 
ing of the two bends was then crowded down into 
the extreme base of the shield, while the Angevine 
label found room beneath the chief. 

According to a vague tradition, the Simoni drew 
their blood from the high and puissant Counts of 
Canossa. Michelangelo himself believed in this 
pedigree, for which there 1s, however, no foundation 
in fact, and no heraldic corroboration. According 
to his friend and biographer Condivi, the sculptor's 
first Florentine ancestor was a Messer Simone dei 
Conti di Canossa, who came in 1250 as Podesta 
to Florence! ‘‘The eminent qualities of this man 
gained for him admission into the burghership of 
the city, and he was appointed captain of a Sestiere ; 
for Florence in those days was divided into Sestieri, 
instead of Quartieri, as according to the present 
usage.” Michelangelo’s contemporary, the Count 
Alessandro da Canossa, acknowledged this rela- 
tionship. Writing on the 9th of October 1520, he 
addresses the then famous sculptor as “ honoured 


1 Condivi, p. 1. 


a 


THE BUONARROTI SIMONI. . z. 


kinsman,’ and gives the following piece of informa- 
tion :* ‘‘ Turning over my old papers, I have dis- 
covered that a Messere Simone da Canossa was 
Podesta of Florence, as I have already mentioned 
to the above-named Giovanni da Reggio.” Never- 
theless, it appears now certain that no Simone da 
Canossa held the office of Podesta at Florence in 
the thirteenth century. ‘The family can be traced 
up to one Bernardo, who died before the year 1228. 
His grandson was called Buonarrota, and the fourth 
in descent was Simone.” ‘These names recur fre- 
quently in the next generations. Michelangelo 
always addressed his father as ‘‘ Lodovico di Lionardo 
di Buonarrota Simoni,” or ‘Louis, the son of 
Leonard, son of Buonarrota Simoni ;” and he used 
the family surname of Simoni in writing to his 
brothers and his nephew Lionardo. Yet he pre- 
ferred to call himself Michelangelo Buonarroti; 
and after his lifetime Buonarroti became fixed 
for the posterity of his younger brother. ‘‘The 
reason,’ says Condivi, “why the family in Florence 
changed its name from Canossa to Buonarroti was 
this: Buonarroto continued for many generations 
to be repeated in their house, down to the time of 
Michelangelo, who had a brother of that name; 
and inasmuch as several of these Buonarroti held 
rank in the supreme magistracy of the republic, 


1 Gotti, 1. 4. 

2 He died probably in 1314, after playing a considerable part in the 
history of his native town. From him the family derived their sur- 
name of Simoni. 


4 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


especially the brother I have just mentioned, who 
filled the office of Prior during Pope Leo’s visit 
to Florence, as may be read in the annals of that 
city, this baptismal name, by force of frequent repe- 
tition, became the cognomen of the whole family; 
the more easily, because it is the custom at Florence, 
in elections and nominations of officers, to add the 
christian names of the father, grandfather, great- 
erandfather, and sometimes even of remoter ancestors, 
to that of each citizen. Consequently, through the 
many Buonarroti who followed one another, and 
from the Simone who was the first founder of the 
house in Florence, they gradually came to be called 
Buonarroti Simoni, which is their present desig- 
nation.” Excluding the legend about Simone 
da Canossa, this is a pretty accurate account of 
what really happened. Italian putronymics were 
formed indeed upon the same rule as those of 
many Norman families in Great Britain. When 
the use of Di and Fitz expired, Simoni survived 
from Di Simone, as did my surname Symonds from 
Fitz-Symond. 

On the 6th of March: \1475;) according te 
our present computation, Lodovico di Lionardo 
Buonarroti Simoni wrote as follows in his private 
notebook: “I record that on this day, March 6, 
1474, a male child was born to me. I gave him 
the name of Michelangelo, and he was born on a 
Monday morning four or five hours before daybreak, 

1 Condivi, p. 2. 


BIRTH AT CAPRESE. g 


and he was born while I was Podesta of Caprese, 
and he was born at Caprese; and the godfathers 
were those I have named below. He was baptized 
on the eighth of the same month in the Church 
of San Giovanni at Caprese. ‘These are the god- 
fathers :— 


Don DANIELLO pi SER Buonaauipa of Florence, Rector of 
San Giovanni at Caprese ; 

Don ANDREA DI... . of Poppi, Rector of the Abbey of 
Diasiano (t.e. Dicciano) ; 

Jacopo pi Francesco of Casurio (?) ; 

Marco pi Groreio of Caprese ; 

Giovanni Di Bracio of Caprese ; 

ANDREA DI Bragio of Caprese ; 

FRANCESCO DI JACOPO DEL ANDUINO (?) of Caprese ; 

SER BARTOLOMMEO Di SANTI DEL Lanse (1), Notary. 


Note that the date is March 6, 1474, according to 
Florentine usage ab wncarnatione, and according to 
the Roman usage, a natiwitate, it is 1475.”? 
Vasari tells us that the planets were propitious 
at the moment of Michelangelo's nativity: ‘“ Mer- 
cury and Venus having entered with benign aspect 
into the house of Jupiter, which indicated that 
marvellous and extraordinary works, both of manual 
art and intellect, were to be expected from him.’ 


1 Gotti, vol. i p. 3. 2 Vasari, xii, 158. 


6 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


II. 


Caprese, from its beauty and remoteness, deserved 
to be the birthplace of a great artist. It is not 
improbable that Lodovico Buonarroti and his wife 
Francesca approached it from Pontassieve in Vald- 
arno, crossing the little pass of Consuma, descending 
on the famous battle-field of Campaldino, and skirting 
the ancient castle of the Conti Guidi at Poppi. 
Every step in the romantic journey leads over 
eround hallowed by old historic memories. From 
Poppi the road descends the Arno to a richly 
cultivated district, out of which emerges on its 
hill the prosperous little town of Bibbiena. High 
up to eastward springs the broken crest of La 
Vernia, a mass of hard millstone rock (maczgno) 
jutting from desolate beds of lime and shale at 
the height of some 3500 feet above the sea. It 
was here, among the sombre groves of beech and 
pine which wave along the ridge, that S. Francis 
came to found his infant Order, composed the Hymn 
to the Sun, and received the supreme honour of 
the stigmata. To this point Dante retired when the 
death of Henry VII. extinguished his last hopes 
for Italy. At one extremity of the wedge-like 
block which forms La Vernia, exactly on the water- 
shed between Arno and Tiber, stands the ruined 
castle of Chiusi in Casentino. This was one of the 


CHIUSI AND CAPRESE. 7 


two chief places of Lodovico Buonarroti’s podes- 
teria. It may be said to crown the valley of the 
Arno; for the waters gathered here flow downwards 
toward Arezzo, and eventually wash the city walls 
of Florence. A few steps farther, travelling south, 
we pass into the valley of the Tiber, and, after 
traversing a barren upland region for a couple of 
hours, reach the verge of the descent upon Caprese. 
Here the landscape assumes a softer character. Far 
away stretch blue Apennines, ridge melting into 
ridge above Perugia in the distance. Gigantic 
oaks begin to clothe the stony hillsides, and little 
by little a fertile mountain district of chesnut-woods 
and vineyards expands before our eyes, equal in 
charm to those aérial hills and vales above Pontre- 
moli. Caprese has no central commune or head- 
village. It is an aggregate of scattered hamlets and 
farmhouses, deeply embosomed in a sea of greenery. 
Where the valley contracts and the infant Tiber 
breaks into a gorge, rises a wooded rock crowned 
with the ruins of an ancient castle. It was here, 
then, that Michelangelo first saw the light. When 
we discover that he was a man of. more than usually 
neryous temperament, very different in quality from 
any of his relatives, we must not forget what a 
fatiguing journey had been performed by his mother, 
who was then awaiting her delivery. Even suppos- 
ing that Lodovico Buonarroti travelled from Florence 
by Arezzo to Caprese, many miles of rough mountain- 
roads must have been traversed by her on horseback. 


8 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


II. 


Lodovico, who, as we have seen, was Podesta of 
Caprese and of Chiusi in the Casentino, had already 
one son by his first wife, Francesca, the daughter 
of Neri di Miniato del Sera and Bonda Rucellai. 
This elder brother, Lionardo, grew to manhood, 
and became a devoted follower of Savonarola. 
Under the influence of the Ferrarese friar, he de- 
termined to abjure the world, and entered the 
Dominican Order in 1491. We know very little 
about him, and he is only once mentioned in 
Michelangelo's correspondence. Even this reference 
cannot be considered certain. Writing to his father 
from Rome, July 1, 1497, Michelangelo says: “I 
let you know that Fra Lionardo returned hither to 
Rome. He says that he was forced to fly from 
Viterbo, and that his frock had been taken from 
him, wherefore he wished to go there (ze. to 
Florence). So I gave him a golden ducat, which he 
asked for; and I think you ought already to have 
learned this, for he should be there by this time.”? 
When Lionardo died is uncertain. We only know 
that he was in the convent of S. Mark at Florence 
in the year 1510. Owing to this brother’s adoption 
of the religious life, Michelangelo became, early in 
his youth, the eldest son of Lodovico’s family. It 

1 Lettere, No. i. p. 3. 


CHILDHOOD AT SETTIGNANO. 9 


will be seen that during the whole course of his 
long career he acted as the mainstay of his father, 
and as father to his younger brothers. The strength 
and the tenacity of his domestic affections are very 
remarkable in a man who seems never to have 
thought of marrying. “Art,” he used to say, “isa 
sufficiently exacting mistress.” Instead of seeking 
to beget children for his own solace, he devoted 
himself to the interests of his kinsmen. 

The office of Podesta lasted only six months, 
and at the expiration of this term Lodovico re- 
turned to Florence. He put the infant Michel- 
angelo out to nurse in the village of Settignano, 
where the Buonarroti Simoni owned a farm. Most 
of the people of that district gained their liveli- 
hood in the stone-quarries around Settignano and 
Maiano on the hillside of Fiesole. Michelangelo’s 
foster-mother was the daughter and the wife of 
stone-cutters. “‘George,” said he in after-years to 
his friend Vasari, “if I possess anything of good 
in my mental constitution, it comes from my having 
been born in your keen climate of Arezzo; just as 
I drew the chisel and the mallet with which I carve 
statues in together with my nurse’s milk.” ? 

When Michelangelo was of age to go to school, 
his father put him under a grammarian at Florence 
named Francesco da Urbino. It does not appear, 
however, that he learned more than reading and 
writing in Italian, for later on in life we find him 


1 Vasari, xii. p. 159. 


10 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


complaining that he knew no Latin.’ The boy’s 
genius attracted him irresistibly to art. He spent 
all his leisure time in drawing, and frequented the 
society of youths who were apprenticed to masters 
in painting and sculpture. Among these he con- 
tracted an intimate friendship with Francesco 
Granacci, at that time in the workshop of Domenico 
Ghirlandajo. Granacci used to lend him drawings 
by Ghirlandajo, and inspired him with the resolu- 
tion to become a practical artist. Condivi says that 
‘‘Francesco’s influence, combined with the continual 
craving of his nature, made him at last abandon 
literary studies. This brought the boy into dis- 
favour with his father and uncles, who often used 
to beat him severely; for being insensible to the 
excellence and nobility of Art, they thought it 
shameful to give her shelter in their house. Never- 
theless, albeit their opposition caused him the 
ereatest sorrow, it was not sufficient to deter him 
from his steady purpose. On the contrary, growing 
even bolder, he determined to work in colours.” * 
Condivi, whose narrative preserves for us Michel- 
angelo’s own recollections of his youthful years, 
refers to this period the painted copy made by the 
young draughtsman from a copper-plate of Martin 
Schéngauer. We should probably be right in sup- 

1 This we gather from Donato Giannotti’s Dialogue De’ giorni che 
Dante consumo, etc. Firenze, Tip. Gal., 1859. Also in 1518, when 
the members of the Florentine Academy sent a petition to Leo X. about 


the bones of Dante, he alone signed in Italian. 
2 Condivi, p. 4. 





EARLY ENTHUSIASM FOR ART. if 


posing that the anecdote is slightly antedated. 
I give it, however, as nearly as possible in the 
biographer’s own words. ‘‘Granacci happened 
to show him a print of S. Antonio tormented 
by the devils. This was the work of Martino 
d’Olanda, a good artist for the times in which he 
lived; and Michelangelo transferred the composi- 
tion toa panel.* Assisted by the same friend with 
colours and brushes, he treated his subject in so 
masterly a way that it excited surprise in all who 
saw it, and even envy, as some say, in Domenico, 
the greatest painter of his age. In order to diminish 
the extraordinary impression produced by this pic- 
ture, Ghirlandajo went about saying that it came 
out of his own workshop, as though he had some 
part in the performance. While engaged on this 
piece, which, beside the figure of the saint, contained 
many strange forms and diabolical monstrosities, 
Michelangelo coloured no particular without going 
first to Nature and comparing her truth with his 
fancies. ‘Thus he used to frequent the fish-market, 
and study the shape and hues of fishes’ fins, the 
colour of their eyes, and so forth in the case of every 
part belonging to them; all of which details he 
reproduced with the utmost diligence in his paint- 
ing.” * Whether this transcript from Schéngauer 
was made as early as Condivi reports may, as I 


1 See Grimm, vol. i. p. 542, for notes upon the pictures from Schén- 
gauer’s copper-plate, now in the possession of the Bianconi family at 
Bologna and Baron Triqueti in Paris, 

2 Condivi, p. 5. 


12 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


have said, be reasonably doubted. ‘The anecdote is 
interesting, however, as showing in what a natural- 
istic spirit Michelangelo began to work. ‘The un- 
limited mastery which he acquired over form, and 
which certainly seduced him at the close of his 
career into a stylistic mannerism, was based in the 
first instance upon profound and patient interroga- 
tion of reality. 


IV. 


Lodovico perceived at length that it was useless 
to oppose his son’s natural bent. Accordingly, he 
sent him into Ghirlandajo’s workshop. A minute 
from Ghirlandajo’s ledger, under the date 1488, 
gives information regarding the terms of the ap- 
prenticeship. ‘I record this first of April how I, 
Lodovico di Lionardo di Buonarrota, bind my son 
Michelangelo to Domenico and Davit di Tommaso 
di Currado’ for the next three ensuing years, 
under these conditions and contracts: to wit, that 
the said Michelangelo shall stay with the above- 
named masters during this time, to learn the art of 
painting, and to practise the same, and to be at the 
orders of the above-named ; and they, for their part, 
shall give to him in the course of these three years 


1 That was the family name of the famous Ghirlandajo, so called 
because he made the garlands of golden leaves which Florentine 
women wore, 





GHIRLANDAJO’S WORKSHOP. 13 


twenty-four florins (fiorini di suggello): to wit, six 
florins in the first year, eight in the second, ten in 
the third; making in all the sum of ninety-six 
pounds (izre).” <A postscript, dated April 16th of 
the same year, 1488, records that two florins were 
paid to Michelangelo upon that day.’ 

It seems that Michelangelo retained no very 
pleasant memory of his sojourn with the Ghirlan- 
dajo brothers. Condivi, in the passage translated 
above, hints that Domenico was jealous of him. He 
proceeds as follows: ‘‘ This jealousy betrayed itself 
still more when Michelangelo once begged the loan 
of a certain sketch-book, wherein Domenico had 
portrayed shepherds with their flocks and watch- 
dogs, landscapes, buildings, ruins, and such-like 
things. ‘The master refused to lend it; and indeed 
he had the fame of being somewhat envious; for 
not only showed he thus scant courtesy toward 
Michelangelo, but he also treated his brother like- 
wise, sending him into France when he saw that 
he was making progress and putting forth great 
promise; and doing this not so much for any profit 
to David, as that he might himself remain the first 
of Florentine painters. I have thought fit to men- 
tion these things, because I have been told that 


1 The Ricordo translated above was published by Vasari (xii. 160). 
He says that it was shown him by Ghirlandajo’s heirs, in order to 
prove that the master was not envious or unhelpful to his pupil. Of 
course it does not prove anything of the kind. It is only a common 
record of apprenticeship. Gotti (p. 6, note) reckons the pay promised 
at fr. 206.40 of present value. 


14 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Domenico’s son is wont to ascribe the genius and 
divinity of Michelangelo in great part to his father’s 
teaching, whereas the truth is that he received no 
assistance from that master. I ought, however, to 
add that Michelangelo does not complain: on the 
contrary, he praises Domenico both as artist and 
as man.”? 

This passage irritated Vasari beyond measure. 
He had written his first Life of Michelangelo in 
1550. Condivi published his own modest biography 
in 1553, with the expressed intention of correcting 
errors and supplying deficiencies made by “ others,” 
under which vague word he pointed probably at 
Vasari. Michelangelo, who furnished Condivi with 
materials, died in 1564; and Vasari, in 1568, issued 
a second enlarged edition of the Life, into which he 
cynically incorporated what he chose to steal from 
Condivi’s sources. The supreme Florentine sculptor 
being dead and buried, Vasari felt that he was safe 
in giving the lie direct to this humble rival bio- 
grapher. Accordingly, he spoke as follows about 
Michelangelo’s relations with Domenico Ghirlandajo: 
“He was fourteen years of age when he entered 
that master’s service,” and inasmuch as one (Con- 
divi), who composed his biography after 1550, when 
I had published these Lives for the first time, de- 
clares that certain persons, from want of familiarity 


1 Condivi, pp. 5, 6. 

2 As Michelangelo was born March 6, 1475, and as the indenture 
of apprenticeship proves that he went to Ghirlandajo, April 1, 1488, he 
must have been rather less than thirteen years and one month old. 


a as 





CONDIVI AND VASARI. 15 


with Michelangelo, have recorded things that did 
not happen, and have omitted others worthy of rela- 
tion; and in particular has touched upon the point 
at issue, accusing Domenico of envy, and saying that 
he never rendered Michelangelo assistance.” Here 
Vasari, out of breath with indignation, appeals to 
the record of Lodovico’s contract with the Ghir- 
landajo brothers. ‘“‘'These minutes,” he goes on to 
say, ‘‘I copied from the ledger, in order to show 
that everything I formerly published, or which will 
be published at the present time, is truth. Nor 
am I acquainted with any one who had greater fami- 
liarity with Michelangelo than I had, or who served 
him more faithfully in friendly offices; nor do I 
believe that a single man could exhibit a larger 
number of letters written with his own hand, or 
evincing greater personal affection, than I can.’’? 
This contention between Condivi and Vasari, our 
two contemporary authorities upon the facts of 
Michelangelo’s life, may not seem to be a matter of 
great moment for his biographer after the lapse of 
four centuries. Yet the first steps in the art-career 
of so exceptional a genius possess peculiar interest. 
It is not insignificant to ascertain, so far as now is 
possible, what Michelangelo owed to his teachers. 
In equity, we acknowledge that Lodovico’s record 
on the ledger of the Ghirlandajo brothers proves 
their willingness to take him as a prentice, and 
their payment to him of two florins in advance; 





1 Vasari, xii. p. 160. 


16 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


but the same record does not disprove Condivi’s 
statement, derived from his old master’s remini- 
scences, to the effect that Domenico Ghirlandajo 
was in no way greatly serviceable to him as an 
instructor. ‘The fault, in all probability, did not 
lie with Ghirlandajo alone. Michelangelo, as we 
shall have occasions in plenty to observe, was 
difficult to live with; frank in speech to the point 
of rudeness, ready with criticism, incapable of 
governing his temper, and at no time apt to work 
harmoniously with fellow-craftsmen. His extra- 
ordinary force and originality of genius made them- 
selves felt, undoubtedly, at the very outset of his 
career ; and Ghirlandajo may be excused if, with- 
out being positively jealous of the young eagle 
settled in his homely nest, he failed to do the 
utmost for this gifted and rough-natured child of 
promise. Beethoven’s discontent with Haydn as a 
teacher offers a parallel; and sympathetic students 
of psychology will perceive that Ghirlandajo and 
Haydn were almost superfluous in the training 
of phenomenal natures like Michelangelo and 
Beethoven. 

Vasari, passing from controversy to the gossip 
of the studio, has sketched a pleasant picture of 
the young Buonarroti in his master’s employ. 
“The artistic and personal qualities of Michelangelo 
developed so rapidly that Domenico was astounded 
by signs of power in him beyond the ordinary 
scope of youth. He perceived, in short, that he 


WORK DONE UNDER GHIRLANDAJO. i7 


not only surpassed the other students, of whom 
Ghirlandajo had a large number under his tuition, 
but also that he often competed on an equality 
with the master. One of the lads who worked 
there made a pen-drawing of some women, clothed, 
from a design of Ghirlandajo. Michelangelo took 
up the paper, and with a broader nib corrected the 
outline of a female figure, so as to bring it into 
perfect truth to life. Wonderful it was to see the 
difference of the two styles, and to note the judg- 
ment and ability of a mere boy, so spirited and 
bold, who had the courage to chastise his master’s 
handiwork! ‘This drawing I now preserve as a 
precious relique, since it was given me by Granacci, 
that it might take a place in my Book of Original 
Designs, together with others presented to me by 
Michelangelo. In the year 1550, when I was in 
Rome, I Giorgio showed it to Michelangelo, who 
recognised it immediately, and was pleased to see 
it again, observing modestly that he knew more 
about the art when he was a child than now in 
his old age. 

“It happened then that Domenico was engaged 
upon the great Chapel of S. Maria Novella ;* and 
being absent one day, Michelangelo set himself to 
draw from nature the whole scaffolding, with some 
easels and all the appurtenances of the art, and 


1 The frescoes in the choir, These excellent works of Florentine 
design formed Michelangelo’s earliest school in art, and what he after- 
wards achieved in fresco must have mainly been learned there. 

VOL. J. B 


18 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


a few of the young men at work there. When 
Domenico returned and saw the drawing, he ex- 
claimed: ‘This fellow knows more abont it than 
I do,’ and remained quite stupefied by the new 
style and the new method of imitation, which a 
boy of years so tender had received as a gift from 
heaven.” * 

Both Condivi and Vasari relate that, during his 
apprenticeship to Ghirlandajo, Michelangelo demon- 
strated his technical ability by producing perfect 
copies of ancient drawings, executing the facsimile 
with consummate truth of line, and then dirtying 
the paper so as to pass it off as the original of 
some old master.? ‘‘ His only object,” adds Vasari, 
‘““was to keep the originals, by giving copies in 
exchange; seeing that he admired them as speci- 
mens of art, and sought to surpass them by his 
own handling; and in doing this he acquired great 
renown.” We may pause to doubt whether at the 
present time—in the case, for instance, of Shelley 
letters or Rossetti drawings—clever forgeries would 
be accepted as so virtuous and laudable. But it 
ought to be remembered that a Florentine workshop 
at that period contained masses of accumulated 
designs, all of which were more or less the common 
property of the painting firm. No single specimen 
possessed a high market value. It was, in fact, 
only when art began to expire in Italy, when Vasari 
published his extensive necrology and formed his 


1 Vasari, xii. p. 161 * Condivi, p. 6; Vasari, p. 162. 





THE MEDICEAN GARDENS. 19 


famous collection of drawings, that property in a 
sketch became a topic for moral casuistry. 

Of Michelangelo's own work at this early period 
we possess probably nothing except a rough scrawl 
on the plaster of a wall at Settignano. Even this 
does not exist in its original state. The Satyr which 
is still shown there may, according to Mr. Heath 
Wilson’s suggestion, be a rifacimento from the mas- 
ter’s hand at a subsequent period of his career.} 


V. 


Condivi and Vasari differ considerably in their 
accounts of Michelangelo’s departure from Ghir- 
landajo’s workshop. The former writes as follows: 
“So then the boy, now drawing one thing and 
now another, without fixed place or steady line of 
study, happened one day to be taken by Granacci 
into the garden of the Medici at San Marco, which 
garden the magnificent Lorenzo, father of Pope Leo, 
and a man of the first intellectual distinction, had 
adorned with antique statues and other reliques of 
plastic art. When Michelangelo saw these things 
and felt their beauty, he no longer frequented 
Domenico’s shop, nor did he go elsewhere, but, 
judging the Medicean gardens to be the best school, 
spent all his time and faculties in working there.” ” 

1 Heath Wilson, p. 10. 2 Condivi, p. 7. 


20 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Vasari reports that it was Lorenzo’s wish to raise 
the art of sculpture in Florence to the same level 
as that of painting; and for this reason he placed 
Bertoldo, a pupil and follower of Donatello, over 
his collections, with a special commission to aid and 
instruct the young men who used them. With the 
same intention of forming an academy or school of 
art, Lorenzo went to Ghirlandajo, and begged him 
to select from his pupils those whom he considered 
the most promising. Ghirlandajo accordingly drafted 
off Francesco Granacci and Michelangelo Buonarroti.* 
Since Michelangelo had been formally articled by 
his father to Ghirlandajo in 1488, he can hardly 
have left that master in 1489 as unceremoniously as 
Condivi asserts. Therefore we may, I think, assume 
that Vasari upon this point has preserved the gen- 
uine tradition. 

Having first studied the art of design and learned 
to work in colours under the supervision of Ghir- 
landajo, Michelangelo now had his native genius 
directed to sculpture. He began with the rudiments 
of stone-hewing, blocking out marbles designed 
for the Library of San Lorenzo,’ and acquiring that 
practical skill in the manipulation of the chisel 
which he exercised all through his life. Condivi 
and Vasari agree in relating that a copy he made 

1 Vasari, xii. 162. 

2 Condivi, p. 7. Lorenzo very likely intended to build a house for his 
own and his father Cosimo’s unrivalled collection of manuscripts. The 


design was carried out in after-years by Pope Clement VIL, who selected 
a spot at San Lorenzo for the purpose. 


STORY OF THE FAUN’S MASK. 21 


for his own amusement from an antique Faun first 
brought him into favourable notice with Lorenzo. 
The boy had begged a piece of refuse marble, and 
carved a grinning mask, which he was polishing 
when the Medici passed by. The great man stopped 
to examine the work, and recognised its merit. Atthe 
same time he observed with characteristic geniality : 
“Oh, you have made this Faun quite old, and yet 
have left him all his teeth! Do you not know that 
men of that great age are always wanting in one or 
two?” Michelangelo took the hint, and knocked 
a tooth out from the upper jaw. When Lorenzo saw 
how cleverly he had performed the task, he resolved 
to provide for the boy's future and to take him into 
his own household. So, having heard whose son 
he was, “‘Go,” he said, ‘“‘and tell your father that I _ 
wish to speak with him.” 

A mask of a grinning Faun may still be seen in 
the sculpture-gallery of the Bargello at Florence, 
and the marble is traditionally assigned to Michel- 
angelo. It does not exactly correspond to the account 
given by Condivi and Vasari; for the mouth shows 
only two large tusk-like teeth, with the tip of the 
tongue protruding between them. Still there is no 
reason to feel certain that we may not have here 
Michelangelo’s first extant work in marble. 

“Michelangelo accordingly went home, and deli- 
vered the message of the Magnificent. His father, 
guessing probably what he was wanted for, could 
only be persuaded by the urgent prayers of Granacci 


22 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


and other friends to obey the summons. Indeed, 
he complained loudly that Lorenzo wanted to lead 
his son astray, abiding firmly by the principle that he 
would never permit a son of his to be a stone-cutter. 
Vainly did Granacci explain the difference between 
a sculptor and a stone-cutter: all his arguments 
seemed thrown away. Nevertheless, when Lodovico 
appeared before the Magnificent, and was asked if 
he would consent to give his son up to the great 
man’s guardianship, he did not know how to refuse. 
‘In faith,’ he added, ‘not Michelangelo alone, but 
all of us, with our lives and all our abilities, are at 
the pleasure of your Magnificence!’ When Lorenzo 
asked what he desired as a favour to himself, he 
answered : ‘I have never practised any art or trade, 
but have lived thus far upon my modest income, 
attending to the little property in land which has 
come down from my ancestors; and it has been 
my care not only to preserve these estates, but to 
increase them so far as I was able by my industry.’ 
The Magnificent then added: ‘ Well, look about, and 
see if there be anything in Florence which will suit 
you. Make use of me, for I will do the utmost that 
I can for you.’ It so happened that a place in the 
Customs, which could only be filled by a Florentine 
citizen, fell vacant shortly afterwards. Upon this 
Lodovico returned to the Magnificent, and begged 
for it in these words: ‘Lorenzo, I am good for 
nothing but reading and writing. Now, the mate of 
Marco Pucci in the Customs having died, I should 


LORENZO DE’ MEDICI. 23 


like to enter into this office, feeling myself able to 
fulfil its duties decently.’ The Magnificent laid his 
hand upon his shoulder, and said with a smile: 
‘You will always be a poor man;’ for he expected 
him to ask for something far more valuable. Then 
he added: ‘If you care to be the mate of Marco, 
you can take the post, until such time as a better 
becomes vacant.’ It was worth eight crowns the 
month, a little more or a little less.”1 A document 
is extant which shows that Lodovico continued to 
fill this office at the Customs till 1494, when the 
heirs of Lorenzo were exiled ; for in the year 1512, 
after the Medici returned to Florence, he applied to 
Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, to be reinstated in 
the same.’ 

If it is true, as Vasari asserts, that Michelangelo 
quitted Ghirlandajo in 1489, and if Condivi is right 
in saying that he only lived in the Casa Medici for 
about two years before the death of Lorenzo, April 
1492, then he must have spent some twelve months 
working in the gardens at San Marco before the 
Faun’s mask called attention to his talents. His 
whole connection with Lorenzo, from the spring of 
1489 to the spring of 1492, lasted three years; and, 
since he was born in March 1475, the space of his 
life covered by this patronage extended from the 
commencement of his fifteenth to the commence- 
ment of his eighteenth year. 


1 Condivi, pp. 8-10. 
2 The original is given by Gotti, vol. ii. p. 31. 


24 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


These three years were decisive for the develop- 
ment of his mental faculties and special artistic 
genius. It is not necessary to enlarge here upon 
Lorenzo de’ Medici’s merits and demerits, either as 
the ruler of Florence or as the central figure in 
the history of the Italian Renaissance. ‘These have 
supplied stock topics for discussion by all writers 
who have devoted their attention to that period of 
culture. Still we must remember that Michelangelo 
enjoyed singular privileges under the roof of one 
who was not only great as diplomatist and politician, 
and princely in his patronage, but was also a man of 
original genius in literature, of fine taste in criticism, 
and of civic urbanity in manners. ‘The palace of 
the Medici formed a museum, at that period unique, 
considering the number and value: of its art treasures 
—bas-reliefs, vases, coins, engraved stones, paintings 
by the best contemporary masters, statues in bronze 
and marble by Verocchio and Donatello. Its library 
contained the costliest manuscripts, collected from 
all quarters of Europe and the Levant. ‘The guests 
who assembled in its halls were leaders in that 
intellectual movement which was destined to spread 
a new type of culture far and wide over the globe. 
The young sculptor sat at the same board as Marsilio 
Ficino, interpreter of Plato; Pico della Mirandola, 
the pheenix of Oriental erudition ; Angelo Poliziano, 
the unrivalled humanist and melodious Italian poet ; 
Luigi Pulci, the humorous inventor of burlesque 
romance—with artists, scholars, students innumer- 


THE MEDICEAN PALACE. 25 


able, all in their own departments capable of satisfy- 
ing a youth’s curiosity, by explaining to him the 
particular virtues of books discussed, or of antique 
works of art inspected. During those halcyon years, 
before the invasion of Charles VIII., it seemed as 
though the peace of Italy might last unbroken. No 
one foresaw the apocalyptic vials of wrath which 
were about to be poured forth upon her plains and 
cities through the next half-century. Rarely, at 
any period of the world’s history, perhaps only in 
Athens between the Persian and the Peloponnesian 
wars, has culture, in the highest and best sense of 
that word, prospered more intelligently and pacific- 
ally than it did in the Florence of Lorenzo, through 
the co-operation and mutual zeal of men of emin- 
ence, inspired by common enthusiasms, and labour- 
ing in diverse though cognate fields of study and 
production. 

Michelangelo’s position in the house was that of 
an honoured guest or adopted son. Lorenzo not 
only allowed him five ducats a month by way of 
pocket-money, together with clothes befitting his 
station, but he also, says Condivi, “ appointed him 
a good room in the palace, together with all the 
conveniences he desired, treating him in every re- 
spect, as also at his table, precisely like one of his 
- own sons. It was the custom of this household, 
where men of the noblest birth and highest public 
rank assembled round the daily board, for the guests 
to take their places next the master in the order 


26 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


of their arrival; those who were present at the 
beginning of the meal sat, each according to his 
degree, next the Magnificent, not moving afterwards 
for any one who might appear. So it happened 
that Michelangelo found himself frequently seated 
above Lorenzo’s children and other persons of great 
consequence, with whom that house continually 
flourished and abounded. All these illustrious men 
paid him particular attention, and encouraged him 
in the honourable art which he had chosen. But 
the chief to do so was the Magnificent himself, who 
sent for him oftentimes in a day, in order that he 
might show him jewels, cornelians, medals, and such- 
like objects of great rarity, as knowing him to be 
of excellent parts and judgment in these things.’’? 
It does not appear that Michelangelo had any duties 
to perform or services to render. Probably his 
patron employed him upon some useful work of the 
kind suggested by Condivi. But the main business 
of his life in the Casa Medici was to make himself 
a valiant sculptor, who in after-years should confer 
lustre on the city of the lily and her Medicean 
masters. What he produced during this period 
seems to have become his own property, for two 
pieces of statuary, presently to be described, re- 
mained in the possession of his family, and now 
form a part of the collection in the Casa Buonarroti. 


* Condivi, p. 9. 


CENTAUR BAS-RELIEF. 24 


VL 


Angelo Poliziano, who was certainly the chief 
scholar of his age in the new learning, and no less 
certainly one of its truest poets in the vulgar 
language, lived as tutor to Lorenzo’s children in the 
palace of the Medici at Florence. Benozzo Gozzoli 
introduced his portrait, together with the portraits 
of his noble pupils, in a fresco of the Pisan Campo 
Santo. This prince of humanists recommended 
Michelangelo to treat in bas-relief an antique fable, 
involving the strife of young heroes for some woman’s 
person.’ Probably he was also able to point out clas- 
sical examples by which the boyish sculptor might 
be guided in the undertaking. The subject made 
enormous demands upon his knowledge of the nude. 
Adult and youthful figures, in attitudes of vehement 
attack and resistance, had to be modelled; and the 
conditions of the myth required that one at least of 


1 Condivi tells us that this composition represented “the rape of 
Deianeira and the battle of the Centaurs.” Critics have attempted to 
find in it the legend of the Centaurs and the Lapithe, also the story of 
Herakles and Eurytion. The subject has been ably discussed by Josef 
Strzygowski in Jahrbuch der K. Pr. Kunstsammlungen, vol. xii. Heft 4, 
1891. It may be assumed, I think, that the central figure in the 
group of combatants is meant fora woman. Obeying some deep instinct 
of his nature, the youthful Michelangelo gave to this female form attri- 
butes which render it scarcely distinguishable from the adolescent male. 
The details of the bas-relief, however, are such as to make it uncertain 
what particular episode of the Heraklean myth he chose to represent. 


28 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


them should be brought into harmony with equine 
forms. Michelangelo wrestled vigorously with these 
difficulties. He produced a work which, though it 
is imperfect and immature, brings to light the specific 
qualities of his inherent art-capacity. The bas-relief, 
still preserved in the Casa Buonarroti at Florence, 
is, so to speak, in fermentation with powerful half- 
realised conceptions, audacities of foreshortening, 
attempts at intricate grouping, violent dramatic 
action and expression. No previous tradition, unless 
it was the genius of Greek or Greco-Roman an- 
tiquity, supplied Michelangelo with the motive force 
for this prentice-piece in sculpture. Donatello and 
other Florentines worked under different sympathies 
for form, affecting angularity in their treatment of 
the nude, adhering to literal transcripts from the 
model or to conventional stylistic schemes. Michel- 
angelo discarded these limitations, and showed him- 
self an ardent student of reality in the service of 
some lofty intellectual ideal. Following and closely 
observing Nature, he was also sensitive to the light 
and guidance of the classic genius. Yet, at the 
same time, he violated the esthetic laws obeyed 
by that genius, displaying his Tuscan proclivities by 
violent dramatic suggestions, and in loaded, over- 
complicated composition. Thus, in this highly 
interesting essay, the horoscope of the mightiest 
Florentine artist was already cast. Nature leads 
him, and he follows Nature as his own star bids. 
But that star is double, blending classic influence 


“SUOVINGD dO AUITAY-SVg 








MADONNA IN BAS-RELIEF. 29 


with Tuscan instinct. The roof of the Sistine was 
destined to exhibit to an awe-struck world what 
wealths of originality lay in the artist thus gifted, 
and thus swayed by rival forces. For the present, it 
may be enough to remark that, in the geometrical 
proportions of this bas-relief, which is too high for 
its length, Michelangelo revealed imperfect feeling 
for antique principles; while, in the grouping of 
the figures, which is more pictorial than sculptur- 
esque, he already betrayed, what remained with him 
a defect through life, a certain want of organic or 
symmetrical design in compositions which are not 
rigidly subordinated to architectural framework or 
limited to the sphere of an intaglio.* 

Vasari mentions another bas-relief in marble as 
belonging to this period, which, from its style, we 
may, I think, believe to have been designed earlier 
than the Centaurs. It is a seated Madonna with the 
Infant Jesus, conceived in the manner of Donatello, 
but without that master’s force and power over the 
lines of drapery. Except for the interest attaching to 
it as an early work of Michelangelo, this piece would 
not attract much attention. Vasari praises it for grace 
and composition above the scope of Donatello; and 
certainly we may trace here the first germ of that 
sweet and winning majesty which Buonarroti was 
destined to develop in his Piet& of S. Peter, the 


1 What I mean will be felt after a due consideration of the cartoon 
for the Battle of Pisa in the extant copy of that work. It appears in 
the frescoes of the Pauline Chapel of the Vatican, as well as in a large 
variety of original drawings. 


30 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Madonna at Bruges, and the even more glorious 
Madonna of 8. Lorenzo. It is also interesting for 
the realistic introduction of a Tuscan cottage stair- 
case into the background. ‘This bas-relief was pre- 
sented to Cosimo de’ Medici, first Grand-Duke of 
Tuscany, by Michelangelo's nephew Lionardo. It 
afterwards came back into the possession of the 
Buonarroti family, and forms at present an ornament 
of their house at Florence. 


VII. 


We are accustomed to think of Michelangelo as a 
self-withdrawn and solitary worker, living for his art, 
avoiding the conflict of society, immersed in sublime 
imaginings. On the whole, this is a correct concep- 
tion of the man. Many passages of his biography 
will show how little he actively shared the passions 
and contentions of the stirring times through which 
he moved. Yet his temperament exposed him to 
sudden outbursts of scorn and anger, which brought 
him now and then into violent collision with his 
neighbours. An incident of this sort happened 
while he was studying under the patronage of 
Lorenzo de’ Medici, and its consequences marked 
him physically for life. The young artists whom 
the Magnificent gathered round him used to 
practise drawing in the Brancacci Chapel of the 


QUARREL WITH TORRIGIANO. 31 


Carmine. There Masaccio and his followers be- 
queathed to us noble examples of the grand style upon 
the frescoed panels of the chapel walls. It was the 
custom of industrious lads to make transcripts from 
those broad designs, some of which Raphael deigned 
in his latest years to repeat, with altered manner, 
for the Stanze of the Vatican and the Cartoons. 
Michelangelo went one day into the Carmine with 
Piero Torrigiano and other comrades. What ensued 
may best be reported in the narration which Torri- 
giano at a later time made to Benvenuto Cellini. 
‘This Buonarroti and I used, when we were boys, 
to go into the Church of the Carmine, to learn draw- 
ing from the chapel of Masaccio. It was Buonarroti’s 
habit to banter all who were drawing there; and one 
day, when he was annoying me, I got more angry 
than usual, and, clenching my fist, I gave him such 
a blow on the nose that I felt bone and cartilage go 
down like biscuit beneath my knuckles; and this 
mark of mine he will carry with him to the grave.”} 
The portraits of Michelangelo prove that Torrigiano’s 
boast was not a vain one. They show a nose broken 
in the bridge. But Torrigiano, for this act of 
violence, came to be regarded by the youth of 
Florence with aversion, as one who had laid sacri- 
legious hands upon the sacred ark. Cellini himself 
would have wiped out the insult with blood. Still 
Cellini knew that personal violence was not in the 
line of Michelangelo’s character; for Michelangelo, 


1 Memoirs of Cellint, Book i, chap. xiii. 


32 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


according to his friend and best biographer, Condivi, 
was by nature, “‘as is usual with men of sedentary 
and contemplative habits, rather timorous than other- 
wise, except when he is roused by righteous anger 
to resent unjust injuries or wrongs done to himself 
or others, in which case he plucks up more spirit 
than those who are esteemed brave; but, for the 
rest, he is most patient and enduring.”’* Cellini, 
then, knowing the quality of Michelangelo’s temper, 
and respecting him as a deity of art, adds to his 
report of Torrigiano’s conversation: ‘‘ These words 
begat in me such hatred of the man, since I was 
always gazing at the masterpieces of the divine 
Michelangelo, that, although I felt a wish to go 
with him to England, I now could never bear the 
sight of him.” 


VIII. 


The years Michelangelo spent in the Casa Medici 
were probably the blithest and most joyous of his 
lifetime. The men of wit and learning who sur- 
rounded the Magnificent were not remarkable for 
piety or moral austerity. Lorenzo himself found it 
politically useful ‘‘to occupy the Florentines with 
shows and festivals, in order that they might think 
of their own pastimes and not of his designs, and, 
growing unused to the conduct of the common- 

1 Condivi, p. 83. 


CARNIVALS AT FLORENCE. 33 


wealth, might leave the reins of government in his 
hands.”* Accordingly he devised those Carnival 
triumphs and processions which filled the sombre 
streets of Florence with Bacchanalian revellers, and 
the ears of her grave citizens with ill-disguised 
obscenity. Lorenzo took part in them himself, and 
composed several choruses of high literary merit to 
be sung by the masqueraders. One of these carries 
a refrain which might be chosen as a motto for the 
spirit of that age upon the brink of ruin :— 


Youths and maids, enjoy to-day : 
Naught ye know about to-morrow ! 


He caused the triumphs to be carefully prepared by 
the best artists, the dresses of the masquers to be 
accurately studied, and their chariots to be adorned 
with illustrative paintings. Michelangelo’s old friend 
Granacci dedicated his talents to these shows, which 
also employed the wayward fancy of Piero di Cosimo 
and Pontormo’s power as a colourist. ‘It was their 
wont,” says I] Lasca, “‘to go forth after dinner; and 
often the processions paraded through the streets till 
three or four hours into the night, with a multi- 
tude of masked men on horseback following, richly 
dressed, exceeding sometimes three hundred in 
number, and as many on foot with lighted torches. 
Thus they traversed the city, singing to the accom- 
paniment of music arranged for four, eight, twelve, 

1 Adapted from Savonarolw’s Trattato circa il Reggimento, &c., 


Florence, 1847. 
VOL. I. Cc 


34 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


or even fifteen voices, and supported by various 
instruments.” Lorenzo represented the worst as 
well as the best qualities of his age. If he knew 
how to enslave Florence, it was because his own 
temperament inclined him to share the amusements 
of the crowd, while his genius enabled him to in- 
vest corruption with charm. His friend Poliziano 
entered with the zest of a poet and a pleasure- 
seeker into these diversions. He helped Lorenzo 
to revive the Tuscan Mayday games, and wrote 
exquisite lyrics to be sung by girls in summer even- 
ings on the public squares. This giant of learn- 
ing, who filled the lecture-rooms of Florence with 
students of all nations, and whose critical and 
rhetorical labours marked an epoch in the history 
of scholarship, was by nature a versifier, and a ver- 
sifier of the people. He found nothing easier than 
to throw aside his professor's mantle and to im- 
provise ballate for women to chant as they danced 
their rounds upon the Piazza di 8. Trinita. The 
frontispiece to an old edition of such lyrics repre- 
sents Lorenzo surrounded with masquers in quaint 
dresses, leading the revel beneath the walls of the 
Palazzo. Another woodcut shows an angle of the 
Casa Medici in Via Larga, girls dancing the carola 
upon the street below, one with a wreath and 
thyrsus kneeling, another presenting the Magni- 
ficent with a book of love-ditties.* The burden 


1 Preface to Tutti + Trionfi, Firenze, 1559. 
2 See my Renaissance in Italy, vol. iv. p. 386. 


POETRY AND MUSIC. 35 


of all this poetry was: ‘‘Gather ye roses while 
ye may, cast prudence to the winds, obey your 
instincts.” 

There is little doubt that Michelangelo took part 
in these pastimes; for we know that he was de- 
voted to poetry, not always of the gravest kind. 
An anecdote related by Cellini may here be intro- 
duced, since it illustrates the Florentine customs 
I have been describing. ‘‘ Luigi Pulci was a young 
man, who possessed extraordinary gifts for poetry, 
together with sound Latin scholarship. He wrote 
well, was graceful in manners, and of surpassing 
personal beauty. While he was yet a lad and living 
in Florence, it was the habit of folk in certain 
places of the city to meet together during the nights 
of summer on the open streets, and he, ranking 
among the best of the improvisatori, sang there. 
His recitations were so admirable, that the divine 
Michelangelo, that prince of sculptors and of 
painters, went, wherever he heard that he would be, 
with the greatest eagerness and delight to listen to 
him. There was a man called Piloto, a goldsmith, 
very able in his art, who, together with myself, 
joined Buonarroti upon these occasions.”* In like 
manner, the young Michelangelo probably attended 
those nocturnal gatherings upon the steps of the 
Duomo which have been so graphically described 


1 Cellini, Book i. chap. xxxii. This Luigi Pulci must not be con- 
founded with the famous author of the Morgante. The period referred 
to here by Cellini may have been about 1520. 


36 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


by Doni:' “The Florentines seem to me to take 
more pleasure in summer airings than any other folk ; 
for they have, in the square of S. Liberata, between 
the antique temple of Mars, now the Baptistery, 
and that marvellous work of modern architecture, 
the Duomo: they have, I say, certain steps of 
marble, rising to a broad flat space, upon which 
the youth of the city come and lay themselves full- 
length during the season of extreme heat. The 
place is fitted for its purpose, because a fresh breeze 
is always blowing, with the blandest of all air, and 
the flags of white marble usually retain a certain 
coolness. ‘There then I seek my chiefest solace, 
when, taking my aérial flights, I sail invisibly 
above them; see and hear their doings and dis- 
courses: and forasmuch as they are endowed with 
keen and elevated understanding, they always have 
a thousand charming things to relate; as novels, 
intrigues, fables ; they discuss duels, practical jokes, 
old stories, tricks played off by men and women 
on each other: things, each and all, rare, witty, 
noble, decent and in proper taste. 1 can swear that 
during all the hours I spent in listening to their 
nightly dialogues, I never heard a word that was 
not comely and of good repute. Indeed, it seemed 
to me very remarkable, among such crowds of young 
men, to overhear nothing but virtuous conversation.” 

At the same period, Michelangelo fell under very 
different influences; and these left a far more lasting 

1 J Marmi. Firenze: Barbéra, 1863. vol. i. p. 8. 


SAVONAROLA. 37 


impression on his character than the gay festivals 
and witty word-combats of the lords of Florence. 
In 1491 Savonarola, the terrible prophet of coming 
woes, the searcher of men’s hearts, and the remorse- 
less denouncer of pleasant vices, began that Floren- 
tine career which ended with his martyrdom in 1498. 
He had preached in Florence eight years earlier, 
but on that occasion he passed unnoticed through 
the crowd. Now he took the whole city by storm. 
Obeying the magic of his eloquence and the mag- 
netism of his personality, her citizens accepted this 
Dominican friar as their political leader and moral 
reformer, when events brought about the expulsion 
of the Medici in 1494. Michelangelo was one of his 
constant listeners at S. Marco and in the Duomo. 
He witnessed those stormy scenes of religious revival 
and passionate fanaticism which contemporaries have 
impressively described. The shorthand-writer to 
whom we owe the text of Savonarola’s sermons at 
times breaks off with words like these: ‘‘ Here I was 
so overcome with weeping that I could not go on.” 
Pico della Mirandola tells that the mere sound 
of the monk’s voice, startling the stillness of the 
Duomo, thronged through all its space with people, 
was like a clap of doom; a cold shiver ran through 
the marrow of his bones, the hairs of his head stood 
on end while he listened. Another witness reports: 
‘Those sermons caused such terror, alarm, sobbing, 
and tears, that every one passed through the streets 
without speaking, more dead than alive.” 


38 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


One of the earliest extant letters of Michelangelo, 
written from Rome in 1497 to his brother Buonarroto, 
reveals a vivid interest in Savonarola.’ He relates 
the evil rumours spread about the city regarding 
his heretical opinions, and alludes to the hostility 
of Fra Mariano da Genezzano; adding this ironical 
sentence: ‘Therefore he ought by all means to come 
and prophesy a little in Rome, when afterwards he 
will be canonised; and so let all his party be of 
good cheer.” In later years, it is said that the great 
sculptor read and meditated Savonarola’s writings 
together with the Bible. The apocalyptic thunder- 
ings and voices of the Sistine Chapel owe much of 
their soul-thrilling impressiveness to those studies. 
Michelet says, not without justice, that the spirit of 
Savonarola lives again in the frescoes of that vault. 

On the 8th of April 1492, Michelangelo lost his 
friend and patron. Lorenzo died in his villa at 
Careggi, aged little more than forty-four years. 
Guicciardini implies that his health and strength 
had been prematurely broken by sensual indulgences. 
About the circumstances of his last hours there are 
some doubts and difficulties; but it seems clear 
that he expired as a Christian, after a final interview 
with Savonarola. His death cast a gloom over Italy. 
Princes and people were growing uneasy with the pre- 
sentiment of impending disaster; and now the only 
man who by his diplomatical sagacity could main- 
tain the balance of power, had been taken from 

1 Lettere, xlvi. p. 59 


DEATH OF LORENZO. 39 


them. To his friends and dependants in Florence 
the loss appeared irreparable. Poliziano poured forth 
his sorrow in a Latin threnody of touching and 
simple beauty.’ Two years later both he and Pico 
della Mirandola followed their master to the grave. 
Marsilio Ficino passed away in 1499; and a friend 
of his asserted that the sage’s ghost appeared to 
him.” The atmosphere was full of rumours, portents, 
strange premonitions of revolution and doom. The 
true golden age of the Italian Renaissance may 
almost be said to have ended with Lorenzo de’ 
Medici’s life. 


1 See Carmina Quinque Ill: Poetarum, Bergomie, Lancellotus, 1753, 
p. 283. Monodia in Laur. Med. Intonata per Arrighum Isac. 


Quis dabit capiti meo 
Aquam ? quis oculis meis 
Fontem lacrymarum dabit ? 
Ut nocte fleam, 

Ut luce fleam. 


Compare (op. cit., p. 38) Bembo’s fine elegy on the almost contemporary 
deaths of Lorenzo and Poliziano, which closes with these lines :— 


Heu sic tu raptus, sic te mala fata tulerunt, 
Arbiter Ausonie Politiane lyre. 


2 Ficino and Michele Mercato had frequently discussed the immor- 
tality of the soul together. They also agreed that whichever of the two 
died first should, if possible, appear to the other, and inform him of 
the life beyond the grave. Michele, then, was studying at an early 
hour one morning, when a horseman stopped beneath his window, and 
Marsilio’s voice exclaimed: “ Michele, Michele, it is all true!” The 
scholar rose and saw his friend upon a white horse vanishing into the 
distance. He afterwards discovered that Ficino died precisely at the 
time when the apparition came to him. Harford, i. 71. 


CHAPTER II. 


1. Michelangelo returns to his father’s house.—The lost statue of a 
Hercules.—Government of Piero de’ Medicii—He takes Michel- 
angelo back into the palace.—2. Studies in anatomy at S. Spirito. 
—The story of Lorenzo’s apparition to Cardiere.—Michelangelo 
goes to Bologna.—Works on the tomb of S. Domenico.—3. 
Sudden flight from Bologna.—Carves the little S. John and the 
Sleeping Cupid.—History of the latter statue.—Michelangelo’s 
first journey to Rome.—4. His residence in the house of the 
Cardinal di S. Giorgio.—Probable occupations.—Jacopo Gallo 
buys his Bacchus.—Criticism of this statue.-—The Cupid at South 
Kensington,—Michelangelo’s treatment of classical subjects.—5. 
The Madonna and Entombment in the National Gallery.—6. The 
Cardinal di S. Dionigi commissions him to make a Piet&a.—The 
Madonna della Febbre at S. Peter’s in Rome.—Alexander the 
Sixth’s death—7. The Bruges group of Madonna and Child.— 
Contradictions in our reports concerning this marble.—8. The 
Buonarroti family at Florence.—Michelangelo’s relations to his 
father and brothers.—His personal habits and frugal life.—His 
physical appearance and constitutional temperament. 


16, 


AFTER the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Michel- 
angelo returned to his father’s home, and began to 
work upon a statue of Hercules, which is now lost. 
It used to stand in the Strozzi Palace until the siege 
of Florence in 1530, when Giovanni Battista della 
Palla bought it from the steward of Filippo Strozzi, 
and sent it into France as a present to the king. 
The Magnificent left seven children by his wife 


PIERO DE’ MEDICI. 41 


Clarice, of the princely Roman house of the Orsini. 
The eldest, Piero, was married to Alfonsina, of the 
same illustrious family. Giovanni, the second, had 
already received a cardinal’s hat from his kinsman, 
Innocent VIII. Giuliano, the third, was destined to 
play a considerable part in Florentine history under 
the title of Duke of Nemours. One daughter was 
married to a Salviati, another to a Ridolfi, a third 
to the Pope’s son, Franceschetto Cybd. The fourth, 
- Luisa, had been betrothed to her distant cousin, 
Giovanni de’ Medici; but the match was broken 
off, and she remained unmarried. 

Piero now occupied that position of eminence and 
semi-despotic authority in Florence which his father 
and grandfather had held; but he was made of 
different stuff, both mentally and physically. The 
Orsini blood, which he inherited from his mother, 
mixed but ill in his veins with that of Florentine 
citizens and bankers. Following the proud and 
insolent traditions of his maternal ancestors, he 
began to discard the mask of civil urbanity with 
which Cosimo and Lorenzo had concealed their 
despotism. He treated the republic as though it 
were his own property, and prepared for the coming 
disasters of his race by the overbearing arrogance 
of his behaviour. Physically, he was powerful, tall, 
and active ; fond of field-sports, and one of the best 
pallone-players of his time in Italy. Though he 
had been a pupil of Poliziano, he displayed but 
little of his father’s interest in learning, art, and 


42 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


literature. Chance brought Michelangelo into 
personal relations with this man. On the 2oth of 
January 1494 there was a heavy fall of snow in 
Florence, and Piero sent for the young sculptor to 
model a colossal snow-man in the courtyard of his 
palace. Critics have treated this as an insult to the 
great artist, and a sign of Piero’s want of taste; but 
nothing was more natural than that a previous 
inmate of the Medicean household should use his 
talents for the recreation of the family who lived 
there. Piero upon this occasion begged Michel- 
angelo to return and occupy the room he used to 
call his own during Lorenzo’s lifetime. ‘‘ And so,” 
writes Condivi, “he remained for some months with 
the Medici, and was treated by Piero with great 
kindness; for the latter used to extol two men of 
his household as persons of rare ability, the one 
being Michelangelo, the other a Spanish groom, 
who, in addition to his personal beauty, which was 
something wonderful, had so good a wind and such 
agility, that when Piero was galloping on horseback 
he could not outstrip him by a hand’s-breadth.” * 


II. 


At this period of his life Michelangelo devoted 
himself to anatomy. He had a friend, the Prior of 


1 Condivi, p. 12. 


ANATOMICAL STUDIES. 43 


S. Spirito, for whom he carved a wooden crucifix 
of nearly life-size. ‘This liberal-minded churchman 
put a room at his disposal, and allowed him to 
dissect dead bodies. Condivi tells us that the 
practice of anatomy was a passion with his master. 
‘His prolonged habits of dissection injured his 
stomach to such an extent that he lost the power 
of eating or drinking to any profit. It is true, 
however, that he became so learned in this branch 
of knowledge that he has often entertained the 
idea of composing a work for sculptors and painters, 
which should treat exhaustively of all the move- 
ments of the human body, the external aspect of 
the limbs, the bones, and so forth, adding an in- 
genious discourse upon the truths discovered by 
him through the investigations of many years. He 
would have done this if he had not mistrusted 
his own power of treating such a subject with the 
dignity and style of a practised rhetorician. I know 
well that when he reads Albert Diirer’s book, it 
seems to him of no great value; his own concep- 
tion being so far fuller and more useful. Truth to 
tell, Diirer only treats of the measurements and 
varied aspects of the human form, making his figures 
straight as stakes; and, what is more important, he 
says nothing about the attitudes and gestures of 
the body. Inasmuch as Michelangelo is now ad- 
vanced in years, and does not count on bringing his 
ideas to light through composition, he has disclosed 
to me his theories in their minutest details. He 


44 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


also began to discourse upon the same topic with 
Messer Realdo Colombo, an anatomist and surgeon 
of the highest eminence. For the furtherance of 
such studies this good friend of ours sent him the 
corpse of a Moor, a young man of incomparable 
beauty, and admirably adapted for our purpose. It 
was placed at S. Agata, where I dwelt and still 
dwell, as being a quarter removed from public 
observation. On this corpse Michelangelo demon- 
strated to me many rare and abstruse things, which 
perhaps have never yet been fully understood, and 
all of which I noted down, hoping one day, by 
the help of some learned man, to give them to 
the public.”? Of Michelangelo's studies in ana- 
tomy we have one grim but interesting record in 
a pen-drawing by his hand at Oxford. A corpse 
is stretched upon a plank and trestles. Two men 
are bending over it with knives in their hands; 
and, for light to guide them in their labours, a 
candle is stuck into the belly of the subject. 

As it is not my intention to write the political 
history of Michelangelo’s period, I need not digress 
here upon the invasion of Italy by Charles VIL, 
which caused the expulsion of the Medici from 
Florence, and the establishment of a liberal govern- 
ment under the leadership of Savonarola. Michel- 
angelo appears to have anticipated the catastrophe 
which was about to overwhelm his patron. He 
was by nature timid, suspicious, and apt to foresee 

1 Condivi, p. 73. 





Gen se 


a*As es 


WaANQQ 





STuDY OF ANATOMY. 





LORENZO’S GHOST. 45 


disaster. Possibly he may have judged that the 
haughty citizens of Florence would not long put 
up with Piero’s aristocratical insolence. But Con- 
divi tells a story on the subject which is too curious 
to be omitted, and which he probably set down 
from Michelangelo’s own lips. ‘‘In the palace of 
Piero a man called Cardiere was a frequent inmate. 
The Magnificent took much pleasure in his society, 
because he improvised verses to the guitar with 
marvellous dexterity, and the Medici also practised 
this art; so that nearly every evening after supper 
there was music. This Cardiere, being a friend of 
Michelangelo, confided to him a vision which pursued 
him, to the following effect. Lorenzo de’ Medici 
appeared to him barely clad in one black tattered 
robe, and bade him relate to his son Piero that he 
would soon be expelled and never more return to 
his home. Now Piero was arrogant and overbearing 
to such an extent that neither the good-nature of 
the Cardinal Giovanni his brother, nor the courtesy 
and urbanity of Giuliano, was so strong to main- 
tain him in Florence as his own faults to cause 
his expulsion. Michelangelo encouraged the man 
to obey Lorenzo and report the matter to his son; but 
Cardiere, fearing his new master’s temper, kept it to 
himself. On another morning, when Michelangelo 
was in the courtyard of the palace, Cardiere came 
with terror and pain written on his countenance. 
Last night Lorenzo had again appeared to him in 
the same garb of woe; and while he was awake and 


46 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


gazing with his eyes, the spectre dealt him a blow 
on the cheek, to punish him for omitting to report 
his vision to Piero. Michelangelo immediately gave 
him such a thorough scolding that Cardiere plucked 
up courage, and set forth on foot for Careggi, a 
Medicean villa some three miles distant from the 
city. He had travelled about halfway, when he 
met Piero, who was riding home; so he stopped the 
cavalcade, and related all that he had seen and 
heard. Piero laughed him to scorn, and, beckoning 
the running footmen, bade them mock the poor 
fellow. His Chancellor, who was afterwards the 
Cardinal of Bibbiena, cried out: ‘ You are a mad- 
man! Which do you think Lorenzo loved best, 
his son or you? If his son, would he not rather 
have appeared to him than to some one else?’ 
Having thus jeered him, they let him go; and he, 
when he returned home and complained to Michel- 
angelo, so convinced the latter of the truth of his 
vision, that Michelangelo after two days left Florence 
with a couple of comrades, dreading that if what 
Cardiere had predicted should come true, he would 
no longer be safe in Florence.” ? 

This ghost-story bears a remarkable resemblance 
to what Clarendon relates concerning the appari- 
tion of Sir George Villiers. Wishing to warn his 
son, the Duke of Buckingham, of his coming mur- 
der at the hand of Lieutenant Felton, he did not 
appear to the Duke himself, but to an old man- 

1 Condivi, p. 13. 


FLIGHT TO BOLOGNA. 47 


servant of the family; upon which behaviour of Sir 
George's ghost the same criticism has been passed 
as on that of Lorenzo de’ Medici. 

Michelangelo and his two friends travelled across 
the Apennines to Bologna, and thence to Venice, 
where they stopped a few days. Want of money, or 
perhaps of work there, drove them back upon the 
road to Florence. When they reached Bologna on 
the return journey, a curious accident happened to 
the party. The master of the city, Giovanni Benti- 
voglio, had recently decreed that every foreigner, on 
entering the gates, should be marked with a seal of 
red wax upon his thumb. The three Florentines 
omitted to obey this regulation, and were taken to 
the office of the Customs, where they were fined 
in fifty Bolognese pounds. Michelangelo did not 
possess enough to pay this fine; but it so happened 
that a Bolognese nobleman called Gianfrancesco 
Aldovrandi was there, who, hearing that Buonarroti 
was a sculptor, caused the men to be released. Upon 
his urgent invitation, Michelangelo went to this 
gentleman’s house, after taking leave of his two 
friends and giving them all the money in his pocket. 
With Messer Aldovrandi he remained more than a 
year, much honoured by his new patron, who took 
great delight in his genius; ‘‘and every evening he 
made Michelangelo read aloud to him out of Dante 
or Petrarch, and sometimes Boccaccio, until he went 
to sleep.””* He also worked upon the tomb of San 

* Condivi, p. 15. 


48 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Domenico during this first residence at Bologna.’ 
Originally designed and carried forward by Nicola 
Pisano, this elaborate specimen of medieval] sculp- 
ture remained in some points imperfect. There 
was a San Petronio whose drapery, begun by Nicolo 
da Bari, was unfinished. To this statue Michel- 
angelo put the last touches; and he also carved a 
kneeling angel with a candelabrum, the workman- 
ship of which surpasses in delicacy of execution all 
the other figures on the tomb. 


III. 


Michelangelo left Bologna hastily. It is said that 
a sculptor, who had expected to be employed upon 
the arca of S. Domenic, threatened to do him some 
mischief if he stayed and took the bread out of 
the mouths of native craftsmen.? He returned to 
Florence some time in 1495. The city was now 
quiet again, under the rule of Savonarola. Its 
burghers, in obedience to the friar’s preaching, 
began to assume that air of pietistic sobriety which 
contrasted strangely with the gay licentiousness en- 
couraged by their former master. Though the 
reigning branch of the Medici remained in exile, 


1 It is an arca or sarcophagus of Gothic design, adorned with bas- 
reliefs and a great number of detached statuettes, It stands in a chapel 
on the south side of the nave of the Church of 8. Domenico, 

2 Condivi, p. 16. 


Z 
se) 
S 
5 


E OF § 


ATU 


T 





Wy 





THE S. GIOVANNINO. 49 


their distant cousins, who were descended from 
Lorenzo, the brother of Cosimo, Pater Patrie, kept 
their place in the republic. They thought it prud- 
ent, however, at this time, to exchange the hated 
name of de’ Medici for Popolano. With a member 
of this section of the Medicean family, Lorenzo 
di Pierfrancesco, Michelangelo soon found himself 
on terms of intimacy. It was for him that he made 
a statue of the young S John, which was perhaps 
rediscovered at Pisa in 1874. For a long time this 
S. Giovannino was attributed to Donatello; and it 
certainly bears decided marks of resemblance to 
that master’s manner, in the choice of attitude, the 
close adherence to the model, and the treatment of 
the hands and feet. Still it has notable affinities to 
the style of Michelangelo, especially in the youth- 
ful beauty of the features, the disposition of the 
hair, and the sinuous lines which govern the whole 
composition.” It may also be remarked that those 
peculiarities in the hands and feet which I have 
mentioned as reminding us of Donatello—a remark- 
able length in both extremities, owing to the elonga- 
tion of the metacarpal and metatarsal bones and of 
the spaces dividing these from the forearm and tibia— 


1 Tt had been bought in 1817, and placed in the palace of the Counts 
Gualandi Rosselmini at Pisa. The Berlin Museum acquired it in 1880, 
and Professor Bode strongly maintained its genuineness as a work of 
Michelangelo. © 

2 The face is formed upon a type which Donatello used for his S. 
George, and which Michelangelo adhered to afterwards in many of his 
works. Not much can be based upon this detail. Botticelli’s type of 
face corresponds in the same way to that of Filippino Lippi. 

VOL, I. 


'50 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


are precisely the points which Michelangelo retained 
through life from his early study of Donatello’s 
work. We notice them particularly in the Dying 
Slave of the Louvre, which is certainly one of his 
most characteristic works. Good judges are therefore 
perhaps justified in identifying this S. Giovannino, 
which is now in the Berlin Museum, with the statue 
made for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici. 

The next piece which occupied Michelangelo’s 
chisel was a Sleeping Cupid. His patron thought 
this so extremely beautiful that he remarked to the 
sculptor: “If you were to treat it artificially, so as 
to make it look as though it had been dug up, I 
would send it to Rome; it would be accepted as 
an antique, and you would be able to sell it at a 
far higher price.”* Michelangelo took the hint. 
His Cupid went to Rome, and was sold for thirty 
ducats to a dealer called Messer Baldassare del 
Milanese, who resold it to Raffaello Riario, the 
Cardinal di S. Giorgio, for the advanced sum of 
200 ducats. It appears from this transaction that 
Michelangelo did not attempt to impose upon the 
first purchaser, but that this man passed it off upon 
the Cardinal as an antique. When the Cardinal 


1 Grimm, vol. i. p. 546, hazards a conjecture that both this statue and 
the Adonis of the Bargello are works by some follower of Michelangelo. 
This suggestion does not seem to me probable. The reason for not 
assigning the little S. John to Michelangelo is that it does not exhibit 
his peculiar manner. But this peculiar quality a follower would have 
certainly aimed at acquiring. The choice lies between Donatello him- 
self, and Buonarroti refining on that sculptors mannerism. 

? Condivi, p. 16. 


THE SLEEPING CUPID. 51 


began to suspect that the Cupid was the work of a 
modern Florentine, he sent one of his gentlemen 
to Florence to inquire into the circumstances. The 
rest of the story shall be told in Condivi’s words. 
“This gentleman, pretending to be on the look- 
out for a sculptor capable of executing certain works 
in Rome, after visiting several, was addressed to 
Michelangelo. When he saw the young artist, he 
begged him to show some proof of his ability ; 
whereupon Michelangelo took a pen (for at that 
time the crayon [/apis] had not come into use), and 
drew a hand with such grace that the gentleman 
was stupefied. Afterwards, he asked if he had ever 
worked in marble, and when Michelangelo said yes, 
and mentioned among other things a Cupid of such 
height and in such an attitude, the man knew that 
he had found the right person. So he related how 
the matter had gone, and promised Michelangelo, 
if he would come with him to Rome, to get the 
difference of price made up, and to introduce him 
to his patron, feeling sure that the latter would 
receive him very kindly. Michelangelo, then, partly 
in anger at having been cheated, and partly moved 
by the gentleman’s account of Rome as the widest 
field for an artist to display his talents, went with 
him, and lodged in his house, near the palace 
of the Cardinal.”* §. Giorgio compelled Messer 
Baldassare to refund the 200 ducats, and to take 
the Cupid back. But Michelangelo got nothing 
1 Condivi, p. 17. 


52 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


beyond his original price; and both Condivi and 
Vasari blame the Cardinal for having been a dull 
and unsympathetic patron to the young artist of 
genius he had brought from Florence. Still the 
whole transaction was of vast importance, because 
it launched him for the first time upon Rome, where 
he was destined to spend the larger part of his long 
life, and to serve a succession of Pontiffs in their 
most ambitious undertakings. 

Before passing to the events of his sojourn at 
Rome, I will wind up the story of the Cupid. 
It passed first into the hands of Cesare Borgia, 
who presented it to Guidobaldo di Montefeltro, 
Duke of Urbino. On the 30th of June 1502, 
the Marchioness of Mantua wrote a letter to the 
Cardinal of Este, saying that she should very 
much like to place this piece, together with an 
antique statuette of Venus, both of which had be- 
longed to her brother-in-law, the Duke of Urbino, 
in her own collection. Apparently they had just 
become the property of Cesare Borgia, when he 
took and sacked the town of Urbino upon the 
20th of June in that year. Cesare Borgia seems 
to have complied immediately with her wishes; for 
in a second letter, dated July 22, 1502, she de- 
scribed the Cupid as “ without a peer among the 
works of modern times.”? 


1 See Gaye, vol. ii, pp. 53, 54. After writing the above paragraph, I 
thought it worth while to go to Mantua expressly for the purpose of 
tracing out the Cupid. At one end of the long gallery of the Liceo there 


FIRST VISIT TO ROME. 53 


IV. 


Michelangelo arrived in Rome at the end of June 
1496. This we know from the first of his extant 
letters, which is dated July 2, and addressed to 
Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici. The super- 
scription, however, bears the name of Sandro Botti- 
celli, showing that some caution had still to be 
observed in corresponding with the Medici, even 
with those who latterly assumed the name of 
Popolani. The young Buonarroti writes in excel- 
lent spirits: “I only write to inform you that last 


is a little marble figure, about four feet long, of a Cupid stretched upon 
his back asleep, short wings spread out beneath his shoulders, arms laid 
along his sides, the bow and quiver close to the left flank, the head 
crowned witha wreath of leaves and conventional flowers. Two snakes, 
their tails coiled loosely round each of the boy’s wrists, are creeping with 
open mouths as though they mean to come together above hisnavel. The 
marble seems to be Carrara, and has stains of faint blue traceable upon the 
surface. The finish of the statuette is exquisite where there has been no 
injury. Itshines like polished ivory. But deep scratches, livid dis- 
colorations, and bruised extremities point to the action of violence and 
time. The style is that of Graeco-Roman decadence, not differing in any 
important respect from that of two marble Cupids in the Uffizi, one 
of which, supposing it to have come down from Lorenzo de’ Medici’s 
collection, may have supplied Michelangelo with his subject. Neither 
in type nor in handling would any one recognise a work of Buonarroti. 
Yet this does not invalidate its genuineness, since we know that the lost 
Cupid was sold asan antique. Weare told that the sculptor added marks 
of injury and earth-stains, “so that,” as Condivi says, “it seemed to have 
been fashioned many years before, there being no sleight of ingenuity 
hidden from his talent.” Before we reject this statuette on the score of 
its classic style, we must remember that Michelangelo in his youth 


54 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Saturday we arrived safely, and went at once to visit 
the Cardinal di San Giorgio; and I presented your 
letter to him. It appeared to me that he was pleased 
to see me, and he expressed a wish that I should go 
immediately to inspect his collection of statues. I 
spent the whole day there, and for that reason was 
unable to deliver all your letters. Afterwards, on 
Sunday, the Cardinal came into the new house, and 
had me sent for. I went to him, and he asked what 
I thought about the things which I had seen. I 
replied by stating my opinion, and certainly I can 
say with sincerity that there are many fine things in 
the collection. Then he asked me whether I had 
the courage to make some beautiful work of art. 


amused himself with making exact copies of old drawings, which he 
passed off as originals, while the mask of the Faun shows what he 
could do in imitation of the antique. One notable peculiarity of the 
statuette is the addition of the two snakes to the sleeping figure. Some 
allegory, not wholly in the spirit of classic art, but very much in the 
line of fifteenth-century thought, seems to have been intended. Condivi 
says that Michelangelo’s Cupid existed at his time in the Palazzo 
Gonzaga at Mantua, De Thou (quoted in the notes to Condivi, p. 179) 
saw it there in 1573. The sleeping Cupid now in the Liceo was brought 
there from the palace of the Dukes of Mantua. At the same time we 
should remember that several of the Mantuan marbles were transferred 
to Venice after the sack of the town in 1630; and among the antique 
statues in the Ducal Palace of S. Mark there are two Sleeping Cupids, 
both obviously of the latest Roman decadence. It seems impossible, 
therefore, to decide either affirmatively or negatively upon the question 
of the genuineness of this work. The mere fact that Buonarroti planned 
a mystification places it, in the absence of external evidence, beyond the 
sphere of criticism. I must add, finally, that Springer (vol. i. p. 306) 
regards the Mantuan Cupid as not to be identified with Michelangelo's, 
on the ground that Niccola d’Arca in an epigram mentions a torch at 
the boy’s side. 


THE CARDINAL DI S. GIORGIO. a 


I answered that I should not be able to achieve 
anything so great, but that he should see what I 
could do. We have bought a piece of marble for 
a life-size statue, and on Monday I shall begin to 
work.’’? 

After describing his reception, Michelangelo pro- 
ceeds to relate the efforts he was making to regain 
his Sleeping Cupid from Messer Baldassare: ‘‘ After- 
wards, I gave your letter to Baldassare, and asked 
him for the child, saying I was ready to refund his 
money. He answered very roughly, swearing he 
would rather break it in a hundred pieces; he had 
bought the child, and it was his property; he pos- 
sessed writings which proved that he had satisfied 
the person who sent it to him, and was under no 
apprehension that he should have to give it up. 
Then he complained bitterly of you, saying that you 
had spoken ill of him, Certain of our Florentines 
sought to accommodate matters, but failed in their 
attempt. Now I look to coming to terms through 
the Cardinal; for this is the advice of Baldassare 
Balducci. What ensues I will report to you.” It is 
clear that Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, being convinced 
of the broker’s sharp practice, was trying to recover 
the Sleeping Cupid (the child) at the price originally 
paid for it, either for himself or for Buonarroti. 
The Cardinal is mentioned as being the most likely 
person to secure the desired result. 

Whether Condivi is right in saying that S. Giorgio 

1 Lettere, No, cccxlii. p, 375. 


56 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


neglected to employ Michelangelo may be doubted. 
We have seen from this letter to Lorenzo that the 
Cardinal bought a piece of marble and ordered a 
life-size statue. But nothing more is heard about 
the work. Professor Milanesi, however, has pointed 
out that when the sculptor was thinking of leaving 
Rome in 1497 he wrote to his father on the rst of 
July as follows: ‘‘ Most revered and beloved father, 
do not be surprised that I am unable to return, for 
I have not yet settled my affairs with the Cardinal, 
and I do not wish to leave until I am properly paid 
for my labour; and with these great patrons one 
must go about quietly, since they cannot be com- 
pelled. I hope, however, at any rate during the 
course of next week, to have completed the trans- 
action.” ? 

Michelangelo remained at Rome for more than 
two years after the date of the letter just quoted. 
We may conjecture, then, that he settled his accounts 
with the Cardinal, whatever these were, and we 
know that he obtained other orders. In a second 
letter to his father, August 19, 1497, he writes thus: 
‘Piero de’ Medici gave me a commission for a 
statue, and I bought the marble. But I did not 
begin to work upon it, because he failed to perform 
what he promised. Wherefore I am acting on my 
own account, and am making a statue for my own 
pleasure. I bought the marble for five ducats, and 
it turned out bad. So I threw my money away. 

» Lettere, No. i. p. 3, and editor’s note, 


FIRST YEAR IN ROME. 57 


Now I have bought another at the same price, and 
the work I am doing is for my amusement. You 
will therefore understand that I too have large 
expenses and many troubles.” ? 

During the first year of his residence in Rome 
(between July 2, 1496, and August 19, 1497) Michel- 
-angelo must have made some money, else he could 
not have bought marble and have worked upon his 
own account. Vasari asserts that he remained nearly 
twelve months in the household of the Cardinal, and 
that he only executed a drawing of S. Francis re- 
ceiving the stigmata, which was coloured by a barber 
in §. Giorgio’s service, and placed in the Church of 
S. Pietro a Montorio.? Benedetto Varchi describes 
this picture as having been painted by Buonarroti’s 
own hand.’ We know nothing more for certain 
about it. How he earned his money is, therefore, 
unexplained, except upon the supposition that S. 
Giorgio, unintelligent as he may have been in his 
patronage of art, paid him for work performed. I 
may here add that the Piero de’ Medici who gave 
the commission mentioned in the last quotation was 
the exiled head of the ruling family. Nothing had 
to be expected from such a man. He came to Rome 
in order to be near the Cardinal Giovanni, and to 
share this brother’s better fortunes; but his days 
and nights were spent in debauchery among the 
companions and accomplices of shameful riot. 


1 Lettere, No. il. p. 4. 2 Vasari, p. 169. 
3 Orazxione in Morte di M. A., cap. 16. 


58 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


V. 


Michelangelo, in short, like most young artists, 
was struggling into fame and recognition. Both 
came to him by the help of a Roman gentleman and 
banker, Messer Jacopo Gallo. It so happened that 
an intimate Florentine friend of Buonarroti, the 
Baldassare Balducci mentioned at the end of his 
letter to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, was employed in 
Gallo’s house of business. It is probable, there- 
fore, that this man formed the link of connection 
between the sculptor and his new patron. At all 
events, Messer Gallo purchased a Bacchus, which 
now adorns the sculpture-gallery of the Bargello, 
and a Cupid, which may possibly be the statue at 
South Kensington. 

Condivi says that this gentleman, “‘a man of fine 
mtelligence, employed him to execute in his own 
house a marble Bacchus, ten palms in height, the 
form and aspect of which correspond in all parts to 
the meaning of ancient authors. The face of the 
youth is jocund, the eyes wandering and wanton, 
as is the wont with those who are too much addicted 
to a taste for wine. In his right hand he holds a 
cup, lifting it to drink, and gazing at it like one 


1 There are two letters from Giovanni Balducci to Michelangelo pre- 
served in the Archivio Buonarroti, Cod. vi. Nos. 45, 46. Both belong 
to the summer of 1506. | 


THE BACCHUS. 59 


who takes delight in that liquor, of which he was the 
first discoverer. For this reason, too, the sculptor 
has wreathed his head with vine-tendrils. On his 
left arm hangs a tiger-skin, the beast dedicated to 
Bacchus, as being very partial to the grape. Here 
the artist chose rather to introduce the skin than 
the animal itself, in order to hint that sensual in- 
dulgence in the pleasure of the grape-juice leads at 
last to loss of life. With the hand of this arm 
he holds a bunch of grapes, which a little satyr, 
crouched below him, is eating on the sly with glad 
and eager gestures. The child may seem to be 
seven years, the Bacchus eighteen of age.”* This 
description is comparatively correct, except that 
Condivi is obviously mistaken when he supposes 
that Michelangelo’s young Bacchus faithfully em- 
bodies the Greek spirit. The Greeks never forgot, 
in all their representations of Dionysos, that he was 
a mystic and enthusiastic deity. Joyous, volup- 
tuous, androgynous, he yet remains the god who 
brought strange gifts and orgiastic rites to men. 
His followers, Silenus, Bacchantes, Fauns, exhibit, 
in their self-abandonment to sensual joy, the opera- 
tion of his genius. The deity descends to join their 
revels from his clear Olympian ether, but he is 
not troubled by the fumes of intoxication. Michel- 
angelo has altered this conception. Bacchus, with 
him, is a terrestrial young man, upon the verge of 
toppling over into drunkenness. The value of the 
1 Condivi, p. 18. 


60 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


work is its realism. The attitude could not be 
sustained in actual life for a moment without either 
the goblet spilling its liquor or the body reeling 
side-ways. Not only are the eyes wavering and 
wanton, but the muscles of the mouth have relaxed 
into a tipsy smile; and, instead of the tiger-skin 
being suspended from the left arm, it has slipped 
down, and is only kept from falling by the loose 
erasp of the trembling hand. Nothing, again, could 
be less godlike than the face of Bacchus. It is the 
face of a not remarkably good-looking model, and 
the head is too small both for the body and the 
heavy crown of leaves. As a study of incipient 
intoxication, when the whole person is disturbed by 
drink, but human dignity has not yet yielded to 
a bestial impulse, this statue proves the energy of 
Michelangelo’s imagination. The physical beauty 
of his adolescent model in the limbs and body 
redeems the grossness of the motive by the inalien- 
able charm of health and carnal comeliness. Finally, 
the technical merits of the work cannot too strongly 
be insisted on. The modelling of the thorax, the 
exquisite roundness and fleshiness of the thighs and 
arms and belly, the smooth skin-surface expressed 
throughout in marble, will excite admiration in all 
who are capable of appreciating this aspect of the 
statuary’s art. Michelangelo produced nothing more 
finished in execution, if we except the Pietad at S. 
Peter's. His Bacchus alone is sufficient to explode a 
theory favoured by some critics, that, left to work 


CRITICISM OF THE BACCHUS. 61 


unhindered, he would still have preferred a certain 
vagueness, a certain want of polish in his marbles. 

Nevertheless, the Bacchus leaves a disagreeable 
impression on the mind—as disagreeable in its own 
way as that produced by the Christ of the Minerva. 
That must be because it is wrong in spiritual con- 
ception—brutally materialistic where it ought to 
have been noble or graceful. In my opinion, the 
frank, joyous naturalism of Sansovino’s Bacchus 
(also in the Bargello) possesses more of true Greek 
inspiration than Michelangelo’s. If Michelangelo 
meant to carve a Bacchus, he failed; if he meant 
to imitate a physically desirable young man in a 
state of drunkenness, he succeeded. 

What Shelley wrote upon this statue may here be 
introduced,’ since it combines both points of view in 
a criticism of much spontaneous vigour. 

“The countenance of this figure is the most re- 
volting mistake of the spirit and meaning of Bacchus. 
It looks drunken, brutal, and narrow-minded, and 
has an expression of dissoluteness the most revolting. 
The lower part of the figure is stiff, and the manner 
in which the shoulders are united to the breast, and 
the neck to the head, abundantly inharmonious. It 
is altogether without unity, as was the idea of the 
deity of Bacchus in the conception of a Catholic. 
On the other hand, considered merely as a piece of 
workmanship, it has great merits. ‘The arms are 
executed in the most perfect and manly beauty; the 


1 Forman’s edition of the Prose Works, vol. ill. p. 71. 


62 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


body is conceived with great energy, and the lines 
which describe the sides and thighs, and the manner 
in which they mingle into one another, are of the 
highest order of boldness and beauty. It wants, as 
a work of art, unity and simplicity; as a representa- 
tion of the Greek deity of Bacchus, it wants every- 
thing.” 

Jacopo Gallo is said to have also purchased a 
Cupid from Michelangelo. It has been suggested, 
with great plausibility, that this Cupid was the 
piece which Michelangelo began when Piero de’ 
Medici’s commission fell through, and that it there- 
fore preceded the Bacchus in date of execution. It 
has also been suggested that the so-called Cupid at 
South Kensington is the work in question. We 
have no authentic information to guide us in the 
matter.1 But the South Kensington Cupid is cer- 
tainly a production of the master’s early manhood. 
It was discovered some forty years ago, hidden away 
in the cellars of the Gualfonda (Rucellai) Gardens at 
Florence, by Professor Miliarini and the famous Flo- 
rentine sculptor Santarelli. On a cursory inspection 
they both declared it to be a genuine Michelangelo.’ 


1 Springer (vol. i. p. 22) points out that while Condivi mentions a 
Cupid, Ulisse Aldovrandi, who also saw the statue in Messer Gallo’s 
house at Rome, talks of an Apollo, quite naked, with a quiver at his 
side and an urn at his feet. 

2 Heath Wilson, p. 33. Catalogue of the Italian Sculpture at the 
South Kensington Museum, by J. C. Robinson, pp. 134, 135. The 
want of finish in certain portions of the marble is the only sign which 
makes me doubt its attribution to Michelangelo’s first Roman visit, 


THE SOUTH KENSINGTON CUPID. 63 


The left arm was broken, the right hand damaged, 
and the hair had never received the sculptor’s final 
touches. Santarelli restored the arm, and the Cupid 
passed by purchase into the possession of the English 
nation. This fine piece of sculpture is executed 
in Michelangelo’s proudest, most dramatic manner. 
The muscular young man of eighteen, a model of 
superb adolescence, kneels upon his right knee, while 
the right hand is lowered to lift an arrow from the 
eround. The left hand is raised above the head, 
and holds the bow, while the left leg is so placed, 
with the foot firmly pressed upon the ground, as to 
indicate that in a moment the youth will rise, fit 
the shaft to the string, and send it whistling at his 
adversary. his choice of a momentary attitude is 
eminently characteristic of Michelangelo’s style; and, 
if we are really to believe that he intended to por- 
tray the god of love, it offers another instance of 
his independence of classical tradition. No Greek 
would have thus represented Eréds. The lyric poets, 
indeed, Ibycus and Anacreon, imaged him as a fierce 
invasive deity, descending like the whirlwind on an 
oak, or striking at his victim with an axe. But these 
romantic ideas did not find expression, so far as Iam 
aware, in antique plastic art. Michelangelo’s Cupid is 
therefore as original as his Bacchus. Much as critics 
have written, and with justice, upon the classical ten- 
dencies of the Italian Renaissance, they have failed 


What else of certain he wrought there, shows a most scrupulous seeking 
after completion. 


< set: cee ee 


= ADSL IEA ACETAL SiC a DEEN NO EI TE ct tg ra 
an REE AIP SAAN I 


64 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


to point out that the Paganism of the Cinque Cento 
rarely involved a servile imitation of the antique or 
a sympathetic intelligence of its spirit. Least of all 
do we find either of these qualities in Michelangelo. 
He drew inspiration from his own soul, and he went 
straight to to Nature for the méans-of expressing the 
conception he had formed, “Unlike” the Greeks, he 
invariably preferred the particular to the universal, 
the critical moment of an action to suggestions of 
the possibilities of action. He carved an individual 
being, not an abstraction or a generalisation of per- 
sonality. ‘The Cupid supplies us with a splendid 
illustration of this criticism. Being a product of 
his early energy, before he had formed a certain 
manneristic way of seeing Nature and of reproducing 
what he saw, it not only casts light upon the spon- 
taneous working of his genius, but it also shows how 
the young artist had already come to regard the in- 
most passion of the soul. When quite an old man, 
rhyming those rough platonic sonnets, he always 
spoke of love as masterful and awful. For his 
austere and melancholy nature, Erés was no tender 
or light-winged youngling, but a masculine tyrant, 
the tamer of male spirits. Therefore this Cupid, 
adorable in the power and beauty of his vigorous 
manhood, may well remain for us the myth or symbol 
of love as Michelangelo imagined that emotion. In 
composition, the figure is from all points of view 
admirable, presenting a series of nobly varied line- 
harmonies. All we have to regret is that time, 


‘SMGIA OMJ—dId09 ABI, 


uta animes 


os 


aeRO 





Sy 





NATIONAL GALLERY MADONNA. 65 


exposure to weather, and vulgar outrage should have 
spoiled the surface of the marble.! 


V. 


It is natural to turn from the Cupid to another 
work belonging to the English nation, which has 
recently been ascribed to Michelangelo. I mean 
the Madonna, with Christ, S. John, and four 
attendant male figures, once in the possession of 
Mr. H. Labouchere, and now in the National 
Gallery. We have no authentic tradition regarding 
this tempera painting, which in my judgment is 
the most beautiful of the easel pictures attributed 
to Michelangelo. Internal evidence from style ren- 
ders its genuineness in the highest degree probable. 
No one else upon the close of the fifteenth century 
was capable of producing a composition at once 
so complicated, so harmonious, and so clear as the 
group formed by Madonna, Christ leaning on her 
knee to point a finger at the book she holds, and 
the young S. John turned round to combine these 
figures with the exquisitely blended youths behind 
him. Unfortunately the two angels or genii upon 
the left hand are unfinished; but had the picture 
been completed, we should probably have been able 

* There is reason to think that it stood some two hundred years in 


the open air, and that it was once used as a mark for pistol-shooting, 
VOL, I. E 


66 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


to point out another magnificent episode in the 
composition, determined by the transverse line car- 
ried from the hand upon the last youth’s shoulder, 
through the open book and the upraised arm of 
Christ, down to the feet of S. John and the last 
genius on the right side. Florentine painters had 
been wont to place attendant angels at both sides 
of their enthroned Madonnas. Fine examples might 
be chosen from the work of Filippino Lippi and 
Botticelli. But their angels were winged and 
clothed like acolytes; the Madonna was seated on 
a rich throne or under a canopy, with altar-candles, 
wreaths of roses, flowering lilies. It is characteristic 
of Michelangelo to adopt a conventional motive, and 
to treat it with brusque originality. In this picture 
there are no accessories to the figures, and the 
attendant angels are Tuscan lads half draped in 
succinct tunics. The style is rather that of a flat 
relief in stone than of a painting; and though we 
may feel something of Ghirlandajo’s influence, the 
spirit of Donatello and Luca della Robbia are more 
apparent. That it was the work of an inexperienced 
painter is shown by the failure to indicate pictorial 
planes. In spite of the marvellous and intricate 
beauty of the line-composition, it lacks that effect 
of graduated distances which might perhaps have 
been secured by execution in bronze or marble. 
The types have not been chosen with regard to ideal 
loveliness or dignity, but accurately studied from 
living models. This is very obvious in the heads 


NATIONAL GALLERY ENTOMBMENT. 67 


of Christ and S. John. The two adolescent genii 
on the right hand possess a high degree of natural 
grace. Yet even here what strikes one most is 
the charm of their attitude, the lovely interlacing 
of their arms and breasts, the lithe alertness of 
the one lad contrasted with the thoughtful leaning 
languor of his comrade. Only perhaps in some 
drawings of combined male figures made by Ingres 
for his picture of the Golden Age, have lines of 
equal dignity and simple beauty been developed. 
I do not think that this Madonna, supposing it to 
be a genuine piece by Michelangelo, belongs to the 
period of his first residence in Rome. In spite of 
its immense intellectual power, it has an air of 
immaturity. Probably Heath Wilson was right in 
assigning it to the time spent at Florence after 
Lorenzo de’ Medici’s death, when the artist was 
about twenty years of age.’ 

I may take this occasion for dealing summarily 
with the Entombment in the National Gallery. 
The picture, which is half finished, has no pedigree. 
It was bought out of the collection of Cardinal 
Fesch, and pronounced to be a Michelangelo by 

* I am indebted to Prof. Middleton for some observations on this pic- 
ture. He points out the hesitating brush-work, timid use of hatched 
lines, and so forth, in the technique. We know so little about Michel- 
angelo’s first essays at painting, and he so strenuously asserted that 
painting was not his trade, that I do not feel the indecision noticeable 
in the workmanship of this panel to be stringent evidence against its 
genuineness. At any rate, if we refuse to acknowledge it as a piece of 


his own handiwork, we must accept it as a careful transcript from his 
design by one who, like himself, was not by trade a painter, 


68 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


the Munich painter Cornelius. Good judges have 
adopted this attribution, and to differ from them 
requires some hardihood. Still it is painful to 
believe that at any period of his life Michelangelo 
could have produced a composition so discordant, 
so unsatisfactory in some anatomical details, so 
feelingless and ugly. It bears indubitable traces 
of his influence; that is apparent in the figure of 
the dead Christ. But this colossal nude, with the 
massive chest and attenuated legs, reminds us of 
his manner in old age; whereas the rest of the 
picture shows no trace of that manner. I am 
inclined to think that the Entombment was the 
production of a second-rate craftsman, working 
upon some design made by Michelangelo at the 
advanced period when the Passion of our Lord 
occupied his thoughts in Rome. Even so, the spirit 
of the drawing must have been imperfectly assimil- 
ated; and, what is more puzzling, the composition 
does not recall the style of Michelangelo’s old age. 
The colouring, so far as we can understand it, rather 
suggests Pontormo. 

1 Mr. Robert Macpherson found it in a dealer’s shop at Rome in 


1846, completely painted over. He had it cleaned, and the under sur- 
face was assigned to Michelangelo, 


CARDINAL DI S. DIONIGI, 69 


vs 


Michelangelo’s good friend, Jacopo Gallo, was 
again helpful to him in the last and greatest work © 
which he produced during this Roman residence. 
The Cardinal Jean de la Groslaye de Villiers 
Frangois, Abbot of S. Denys, and commonly called 
by Italians the Cardinal di San Dionigi,’ wished to 
have a specimen of the young sculptor’s handiwork. 
Accordingly articles were drawn up to the following 
effect on August 26, 1498: “Let it be known and 
manifest to whoso shall read the ensuing document, 
that the most Rev. Cardinal of S. Dionigi has thus 
agreed with the master Michelangelo, sculptor of 
Florence, to wit, that the said master shall make a 
Pieta of marble at his own cost; that is to say, 
a Virgin Mary clothed, with the dead Christ in 
her arms, of the size of a proper man, for the price 
of 450 golden ducats of the Papal mint, within 
the term of one year from the day of the com- 
mencement of the work.” Next follow clauses 
regarding the payment of the money, whereby the 
Cardinal agrees to disburse sums in advance. The 
contract concludes with a guarantee and surety 
given by Jacopo Gallo. ‘And I, Jacopo Gallo, 
pledge my word to his most Rev. Lordship that 


+ He came in 1493 as ambassador from Charles VIII. to Alexander 
VI., when the Borgia gave him the scarlet hat. 


70 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


the said Michelangelo will finish the said work 
within one year, and that it shall be the finest 
work in marble which Rome to-day can show, and 
that no master of our days shall be able to produce 
a better. And, in like manner, on the other side, 
I pledge my word to the said Michelangelo that 
the most Rev. Card. will disburse the payments 
according to the articles above engrossed. To 
witness which, I, Jacopo Gallo, have made this 
present writing with my own hand, according to 
date of year, month, and day as above.” 

The Piet& raised Michelangelo at once to the 
highest place among the artists of his time, and 
it still remains unrivalled for the union of sublime 
esthetic beauty with profound religious feeling. 
The mother of the dead Christ is seated on a stone 
at the foot of the cross, supporting the body of her 
son upon her knees, gazing sadly at his wounded 
side, and gently lifting her left hand, as though 
to say, “Behold and see!” She has the small 
head and heroic torso used by Michelangelo to 
suggest immense physical force. We feel that such 
a woman has no difficulty in holding a man’s corpse 
upon her ample lap and in her powerful arms. 
Her face, which differs from the female type he 
afterwards preferred, resembles that of a young 
woman. For this he was rebuked by critics who 
thought that her age should correspond more natur- 
ally to that of her adult son. Condivi reports that 

1 Gotti, ii. p. 33. 


THE MADONNA DELLA FEBBRE., 71 


Michelangelo explained his meaning in the follow- 
ing words: “Do you not know that chaste women 
maintain their freshness far longer than the un- 
chaste? How much more would this be the case 
with a virgin, into whose breast there never crept 
the least lascivious desire which could affect the 
body? Nay, I will go further, and hazard the belief 
that this unsullied bloom of youth, beside being 
maintained in her by natural causes, may have been 
miraculously wrought to convince the world of the 
virginity and perpetual purity of the Mother. This 
was not necessary for the Son. On the contrary, 
in order to prove that the Son of God took upon 
himself, as in very truth he did take, a human 
body, and became subject to all that an ordinary 
man is subject to, with the exception of sin; the 
human nature of Christ, instead of being superseded 
by the divine, was left to the operation of natural 
laws, so that his person revealed the exact age to 
which he had attained. You need not, therefore, 
marvel if, having regard to these considerations, 
I made the most Holy Virgin, Mother of God, 
much younger relatively to her Son than women of 
her years usually appear, and left the Son such as 
his time of life demanded.”! ‘‘This reasoning,” 
adds Condivi, “was worthy of some learned theo- 
logian, and would have been little short of marvel- 
lous in most men, but not in him, whom God and 
Nature fashioned, not merely to be peerless in his 


1 Condivi, p. 20. 


72 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


handiwork, but also capable of the divinest con- 
cepts, as innumerable discourses and writings which 
we have of his make clearly manifest.” 

The Christ is also somewhat youthful, and 
modelled with the utmost delicacy; suggesting no 
lack of strength, but subordinating the idea of 
physical power to that of a refined and spiritual 
nature. Nothing can be more lovely than the 
hands, the feet, the arms, relaxed in slumber. 
Death becomes immortally beautiful in that re- 
cumbent figure, from which the insults of the 
scourge, the cross, the brutal lance have been 
erased. Michelangelo did not seek to excite pity 
or to stir devotion by having recourse to those 
medieval ideas which were so passionately expressed 
in S. Bernard’s hymn to the Crucified. The esthetic 
tone of his dead Christ is rather that of some sweet 
solemn strain of cathedral music, some motive from 
a mass of Palestrina or a Passion of Sebastian Bach. 
Almost involuntarily there rises to the memory that 
line composed by Bion for the genius of earthly 
loveliness bewailed by everlasting beauty— 


K’en as a corpse he is fair, fair corpse as fallen aslumber. 


It is said that certain Lombards passing by and 
admiring the Pieta ascribed it to Christoforo Solari 
of Milan, surnamed Il Gobbo. Michelangelo, 
having happened to overhear them, shut himself 
up in the chapel, and engraved the belt upop 


OBSEQUIES OF ALEXANDER VI. 73 


Madonna’s breast with his own name. This he 
never did with any other of his works.} 

This masterpiece of highest art combined with 
pure religious feeling was placed in the old Basilica 
of S. Peter's, in a chapel dedicated to Our Lady 
of the Fever, Madonna della Febbre. Here, on 
the night of August 19, 1503, it witnessed one 
of those horrid spectacles which in Italy at that 
period so often intervened to interrupt the rhythm 
of romance and beauty and artistic melody. The 
dead body of Roderigo Borgia, Alexander VI., lay 
in state from noon onwards in front of the high 
altar; but since “it was the most repulsive, mon- 
strous, and deformed corpse which had ever yet 
been seen, without any form or figure of humanity, 
shame compelled them to partly cover it.” “Late 
in the evening it was transferred to the chapel of 
Our Lady of the Fever, and deposited in a corner 
by six hinds or porters and two carpenters, who 
had made the coffin too narrow and too short. 
Joking and jeering, they stripped the tiara and 
the robes of office from the body, wrapped it up 
in an old carpet, and then with force of fists and 
feet rammed it down into the box, without torches, 
without a ministering priest, without a single 
person to attend and bear a consecrated candle.” ? 
Of such sort was the vigil kept by this solemn 


1 Vasari, p. 171. 
2 Dispacer di Antonio Giustinian, ed. P. Villari, Firenze, Le Monnier, 
1876, vol. ii, pp. 124, 458. 


74 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


statue, so dignified in grief and sweet in death, 
at the ignoble obsequies of him who, occupying the 
loftiest throne of Christendom, incarnated the least 
erected spirit of his age. The ivory-smooth white 
corpse of Christ in marble, set over against that fester- 
ing corpse of his Vicar on earth, “black as a piece 
of cloth or the blackest mulberry,” what a hideous 
contrast ! * 


VII. 


It may not be inappropriate to discuss the ques- 
tion of the Bruges Madonna here. This is a marble 
statue, well placed in a chapel of Notre Dame, 
relieved against a black marble niche, with excel- 
lent illumination from the side. The style is un- 
doubtedly Michelangelesque, the execution care- 
ful, the surface-finish exquisite, and the type of 
the Madonna extremely similar to that of the Pieta 
at S. Peter's. She is seated in an attitude of 
almost haughty dignity, with the left foot raised 
upon a block of stone. The expression of her 
features is marked by something of sternness, which 
seems inherent in the model. Between her knees 
stands, half reclining, half as though wishing to 


1 Industrious and unimaginative scholars may do what they choose 
to whitewash Alexander VI., and excuse him on the score of his being 
a child of the age; but they cannot annul the fact that this man, im 
all his appetites, acts, and ambitions, directly contradicted the principles 
for which Christ lived and died. 


i og in 


THE BRUGES MADONNA. 75 


step downwards from the throne, her infant Son. 
One arm rests upon his mother’s knee; the right 
hand is thrown round to clasp her left. This 
attitude gives grace of rhythm to the lines of his 
nude body. ‘True to the realism which controlled 
Michelangelo at the commencement of his art 
career, the head of Christ, who is but a child, 
slightly overloads his slender figure. Physically 
he resembles the Infant Christ of our National 
Gallery picture, but has more of charm and sweet- 
ness. All these indications point to a genuine 
product of Michelangelo’s first Roman manner ; and 
the position of the statue in a chapel ornamented 
by the Bruges family of Mouscron renders the attri- 
bution almost certain.. However, we have only two 
authentic records of the work among the documents 
at our disposal. Condivi, describing the period 
of Michelangelo’s residence in Florence (1501- 
1504), says: ‘“‘He also cast in bronze a Madonna 
with the Infant Christ, which certain Flemish 
merchants of the house of Mouscron, a most noble 
family in their own land, bought for two hundred 
ducats, and sent to Flanders.”? A letter addressed 


1 The external evidence in favour of its genuineness is also strong. 
See L’Huvre et la Vie, p. 253. Albert Diirer in 1521, and Marcus von 
Waernewyck in 1560, both ascribe a Madonna in Notre Dame to 
Michelangelo. We have, moreover, an original drawing by Michel- 
angelo in the Taylor Gallery at Oxford, which was clearly made for it. 
See Robinson’s Critical Account, &c., p. 18. 

2 Condivi, p. 23. Vasari, following and altering Condivi’s text, 
alludes negligently to “a Madonna of bronze in a round, cast for 
zertain Flemish merchants of the Moascron family” (Vasari, p. 176). 


76 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


under date August 4, 1506, by Giovanni Balducci 
in Rome to Michelangelo at Florence, proves that 
some statue which was destined for Flanders re- 
mained among the sculptor’s property at Florence. 
Balducci uses the feminine gender in writing about 
this work, which justifies us in thinking that it 
may have been a Madonna. He says that he has 
found a trustworthy agent to convey it to Viareggio, 
and to ship it thence to Bruges, where it will be 
delivered into the hands of the heir of John and 
Alexander Mouscron and Co., “‘as being their pro- 
perty.”1 This statue, in all probability, is the 
‘Madonna in marble” about which Michelangelo 
wrote to his father from Rome on the 31st of 
January 1507, and which he begged his father to 
keep hidden in their dwelling.* It is difficult to 
reconcile Condivi’s statement with Balducci’s letter. 
The former says that the Madonna bought by the 
Mouscron family was cast in bronze at Florence. 
The Madonna in the Mouscron Chapel at Notre 
Dame is a marble. I think we may assume that 
the Bruges Madonna is the piece which Michel- 
angelo executed for the Mouscron brothers, and 
that Condivi was wrong in believing it to have 
been cast in bronze. That the statue was sent 
some time after the order had been given, appears 


1 Gotti, ii. 51. 

2 Lettere, No. iii. Milanese conjectures that the “Madonna in 
marble” was the little early bas-relief. But I do not see what reason 
Michelangelo had for wishing that not to be seen. 





MADONNA AND CHILD AT BRUGES. 








MICHELANGELO'S FAMILY. 77 


from the fact that Balducci consigned it to the 
heir of John and Alexander, “as being their pro- 
perty;” but it cannot be certain at what exact date 
it was begun and finished. 


VIII. 


While Michelangelo was acquiring immediate 
celebrity and immortal fame by these three statues, 
so different in kind and hitherto unrivalled in 
artistic excellence, his family lived somewhat 
wretchedly at Florence. Lodovico had lost his 
small post at the Customs after the expulsion of the 
Medici ; and three sons, younger than the sculptor, 
were now growing up. Buonarroto, born in 1477, 
had been put to the cloth-trade, and was serving 
under the Strozzi in their warehouse at the Porta 
Rossa.” Giovan-Simone, two years younger (he was 
born in 1479), after leading a vagabond life for 
some while, joined Buonarroto in a cloth-business 
provided for them by Michelangelo. He was a 
worthless fellow, and gave his eldest brother much 
trouble. Sigismondo, born in 1481, took to soldier- 
ing; but at the age of forty he settled down upon 

1 This actual engagement in trade was not considered unworthy of a 
noble family at Florence. The medieval ordinances of the Republic 
even compelled burghers to enroll themselves under one or other of the 


Guilds, to buy and sell, as a condition of their right to share in the 
government, 


78 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


the paternal farm at Settignano, and annoyed 
his brother by sinking into the condition of a 
common peasant.’ The constant affection felt for 
these not very worthy relatives by Michelangelo is 
one of the finest traits in his character. They were 
continually writing begging letters, grumbling and 
complaining. He supplied them with funds, stint- 
ing himself in order to maintain them decently and 
to satisfy their wishes. But the more he gave, the 
more they demanded ; and on one or two occasions, 
as we shall see in the course of this biography, their 
rapacity and ingratitude roused his bitterest indig- 
nation. Nevertheless, he did not swerve from the 
path of filial and brotherly kindness which his 
generous nature and steady will had traced. He 
remained the guardian of their interests, the cus- 


1 Up to the present date considerable uncertainty has rested upon 
the circumstances of Lodovico Buonarroti’s two marriages, It did 
not seem clear whether Giovan-Simone and Sigismondo were not the 
sons of the second wife. Litta, in the Famigle Celebri, throws no light 
on the point. Passerini, in the pedigree published by Gotti, vol. ii, 
represents the first wife, Francesca, as having died in 1497, while he 
assigns the marriage of Lucrezia, the second wife, to the year 1485—a 
gross and obvious blunder. Heath Wilson fixes 1497 as the date of 
Francesca’s death, but is discreetly silent about the time of Lucrezia’s 
marriage. Springer (vol. i. p. 7) adheres to 1485 as the date of the 
second marriage ; but in the pedigree (ibid. p. 303) he represents the 
two younger sons, born in 1479 and 1481, as the children of the second 
wife, Lucrezia—also a gross and obvious blunder. I am now ina posi- 
tion to state upon documentary evidence that Francesca was married in 
1472, and was the mother of all the five sons. Lucrezia was married in 
1485, had no children, died in 1497, and was buried on July 9 in the 
Church of S. Croce. The registration of this burial in the Libro dei 
Morti (Archivio di Stato) was wrongly referred by Passerini to Fran: 
cesca, the first wife. See documents in Appendix, No. I 


DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENCE. 79 


todian of their honour, and the builder of their 
fortunes to the end of his long life. The corre- 
spondence with his father and these brothers and a 
nephew, Lionardo, was published in full for the first 
time in 1875. It enables us to comprehend the 
true nature of the man better than any biographi- 
cal notice; and I mean to draw largely upon this 
source, so as gradually, by successive stipplings, as 
it were, to present a miniature portrait of one who 
was both admirable in private life and incomparable 
as an artist. 

This correspondence opens in the year 1497. 
From a letter addressed to Lodovico under the date 
August 19, we learn that Buonarroto had just arrived 
in Rome, and informed his brother of certain pecu- 
niary difficulties under which the family was labour- 
ing. Michelangelo gave advice, and promised to send 
all the money he could bring together. “ Although, 
as I have told you, I am out of pocket myself, I will 
do my best to get money, in order that you may not 
have to borrow from the Monte, as Buonarroto says 
is possible." Do not wonder if I have sometimes 
written irritable letters; for I often suffer great dis- 
tress of mind and temper, owing to matters which 
must happen to one who is away from home. . . 
In spite of all this, I will send you what you ask for, 
even should I have to sell myself into slavery.”? 


1 The Monte di Piet& was established as a state institution to lend 
money on security. 
2 Lettere, No, ii. p. 4. 


80 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Buonarroto must have paid a second visit to 
Rome; for we possess a letter from Lodovico to 
Michelangelo, under date December 19, 1500, which 
throws important light upon the latter's habits 
and designs. The old man begins by saying how 
happy he is to observe the love which Michel- 
angelo bears his brothers. Then he speaks about the 
cloth-business which Michelangelo intends to pur- 
chase for them. Afterwards, he proceeds as fol- 
lows: ‘“ Buonarroto tells me that you live at Rome 
with great economy, or rather penuriousness. Now 
economy is good, but penuriousness is evil, seeing 
that it is a vice displeasing to God and men, and 
moreover injurious both to soul and body. So 
long as you are young, you will be able for a time 
to endure these hardships; but when the vigour of 
youth fails, then diseases and infirmities make their 
appearance; for these are caused by personal dis- 
comforts, mean living, and penurious habits. As I 
said, economy is good; but, above all things, shun 
stinginess. Live discreetly well, and see you have 
what is needful. Whatever happens, do not expose 
yourself to physical hardships; for in your pro- 
fession, if you were once to fall ill (which God 
forbid), you would be a ruined man. Above all 
things, take care of your head, and keep it mode- 
rately warm, and see that you never wash: have 
yourself rubbed down, but do not wash.”* This 


1 Gotti, p. 23. This advice isso peculiar that I will copy the original : 
“FE non ti lavare mai; fatti stropicciare e non ti lavare.” 


PERSONAL HABITS. 81 


sordid way of life became habitual with Michel- 
angelo. When he was dwelling at Bologna in 1506, 
he wrote home to his brother Buonarroto: “With 
regard to Giovan-Simone’s proposed visit, I do not 
advise him to come yet awhile, for I am lodged here 
in one wretched room, and have bought a single 
bed, in which we all four of us (2.¢., himself and his 
three workmen) sleep.” And again: “Iam impa- 
tient to get away from this place, for my mode of 
life here is so wretched, that if you only knew what 
it is, you would be miserable.” The summer was 
intensely hot at Bologna, and the plague broke out. 
In these circumstances it seems miraculous that the 
four sculptors in one bed escaped contagion. Michel- 
angelo’s parsimonious habits were not occasioned by 
poverty or avarice. He accumulated large sums of 
money by his labour, spent it freely on his family, 
and exercised bountiful charity for the welfare of his 
soul. We ought rather to ascribe them to some 
constitutional peculiarity, affecting his whole tem- 
perament, and tinging his experience with despond- 
ency and gloom. An absolute insensibility to merely 
decorative details, to the loveliness of jewels, stuffs, 
and natural objects, to flowers and trees and pleasant 
landscapes, to everything, in short, which delighted 
the Italians of that period, is a main characteristic 
of his art. This abstraction and aridity, this ascetic 
devotion of his genius to pure ideal form, this almost 
mathematical conception of beauty, may be ascribed, 


1 Lettere, No. xlviii, p. 61. 2 Lettere, No. lxxiv. p. go. 
OL. I. EF 


82 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


I think, to the same psychological qualities which 
determined the dreary conditions of his home-life. 
He was no niggard either of money or of ideas; nay, 
even profligate of both. But melancholy made him 
miserly in all that concerned personal enjoyment ; 
and he ought to have been born under that leaden 
planet Saturn rather than Mercury and Venus in the 
house of Jove. Condivi sums up his daily habits 
thus: ‘“ He has always been extremely temperate in 
living, using food more because it was necessary 
than for any pleasure he took in it; especially when 
he was engaged upon some great work ; for then he 
usually confined himself to a piece of bread, which 
he ate in the middle of his labour. However, for 
some time past, he has been living with more regard 
to health, his advanced age putting this constraint 
upon his natural inclination. Often have I heard 
him say: ‘ Ascanio, rich as I may have been, I have 
always lived like a poor man.’ And this abstemi- 
ousness in food he has practised in sleep also; for 
sleep, according to his own account, rarely suits 
his constitution, since he continually suffers from 
pains in the head during slumber, and any excessive 
amount of sleep deranges his stomach. While he 
was in full vigour, he generally went to bed with 
his clothes on, even to the tall boots, which he has 
always worn, because of a chronic tendency to cramp, 
as well as for other reasons, At certain seasons he 
has kept these boots on for such a length of time, 
that when he drew them off the skin came away 


PHYSICAL APPEARANCE. 83 


together with the leather, like that of a sloughing 
snake. He was never stingy of cash, nor did he 
accumulate money, being content with just enough 
to keep him decently ; wherefore, though innumer- 
able lords and rich folk have made him splendid 
offers for some specimen of his craft, he rarely com- 
plied, and then, for the most part, more out of 
kindness and friendship than with any expectation 
of gain.”* In spite of all this, or rather because 
of his temperance in food and sleep and sexual 
pleasure, together with his manual industry, he pre- 
served excellent health into old age. 

I have thought it worth while to introduce this 
general review of Michelangelo’s habits, without 
omitting some details which may seem repulsive 
to the modern reader, at an early period of his 
biography, because we ought to carry with us 
through the vicissitudes of his long career and 
many labours an accurate conception of our hero’s 
personality. For this reason it may not be un- 
profitable to repeat what Condivi says about his 
physical appearance in the last years of his life. 
“Michelangelo is of a good complexion; more 
muscular and bony than fat or fleshy in his per- 
son: healthy above all things, as well by reason 
of his natural constitution as of the exercise he 
takes, and habitual continence in food and sexual 
indulgence. Nevertheless, he was a weakly child, 
and has suffered two illnesses in manhood. His 


1 Condivi, p. 81 


84 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


countenance always showed a good and whole- 
some colour. Of stature he is as follows: height 
middling; broad in the shoulders; the rest of the 
body somewhat slender in proportion. The shape 
of his face is oval, the space above the ears being 
one sixth higher than a semicircle. Consequently 
the temples project beyond the ears, and the ears 
beyond the cheeks, and these beyond the rest; so 
that the skull, in relation to the whole head, must 
be called large. The forehead, seen in front, is 
square; the nose, a little flattened—not by nature, 
but because, when he was a young boy, Torrigiano 
de’ Torrigiani, a brutal and insolent fellow, smashed 
in the cartilage with his fist. Michelangelo was 
carried home half dead on this occasion; and 
Torrigiano, having been exiled from Florence for 
his violence, came to a bad end. The nose, how- 
ever, being what it is, bears a proper proportion 
to the forehead and the rest of the face. The lips 
are thin, but the lower is slightly thicker than the 
upper; so that, seen in profile, it projects a little. 
The chin is well in harmony with the features 
I have described. The forehead, in a side-view, 
almost hangs over the nose; and this looks hardly 
less than broken, were it not for a trifling pro- 
tuberance in the middle. The eyebrows are not 
thick with hair; the eyes may even be called 
small, of a colour like horn, but speckled and 
stained with spots of bluish yellow. ‘The ears in 
good proportion; hair of the head black, as alse 


EVEN TENOR OF LIFE. 85 


the beard, except that both are now grizzled by 
old age; the beard double-forked, about five inches 
long, and not very bushy, as may partly be observed 
in his portrait.” 

We have no contemporary account of Michel- 
angelo in early manhood; but the tenor of his 
life was so even, and, unlike Cellini, he moved so 
constantly upon the same lines and within the same 
sphere of patient self-reserve, that it is not difficult 
to reconstruct the young and vigorous sculptor out 
of this detailed description by his loving friend and 
servant in old age. Few men, notably few artists, 
have preserved that continuity of moral, intellectual, 
and physical development in one unbroken course 
which is the specific characterisation of Michel- 
angelo. As years advanced, his pulses beat less 
quickly and his body shrank. But the man did 
not alter. With the same lapse of years, his style 
grew drier and more abstract, but it did not alter 
in quality or depart from its ideal. He seems to 
me in these respects to be like Milton: wholly 
unlike the plastic and assimilative genius of a 
Raphael. 


CHAPTER ITI. 


1. Michelangelo returns to Florence early in 1501.—His fame is now 
established.—Order for fifteen statues of male saints to be placed in 
the Cathedral of Siena.—Order for the David at Florence.—History 
of the marble.— Agostino di Guccio.—2, Michelangelo completes 
the David in two years.—The Council of Notables convened to 
decide upon its place.—Removal of the statue to the Piazza.— 
Subsequent history of the David.—3. Criticism of the David.—Its 
realistic quality.—Michelangelo’s method of working in marble.— 
Cellini’s and Vasari’s accounts of the sculptor’s art in their age.— 
4. Soderini, Gonfalonier of Florence.—Story about him and the 
David.—He commissions Michelangelo to cast another David, and 
a copy of Donatello’s David for France.—History of the second 
David in bronze.—Order to make twelve marble Apostles for the 
Duomo.—The 8S. Matteo.—Michelangelo worked with the left hand 
as well as the right.—5. The circular bas-reliefs of the Holy Family 
at Florence and in London.—Their picturesque treatment.—The 
Doni Holy Family at the Uffizi—6. Lionardo da Vinci engaged to 
paint one side of the Sala del Gran Consiglio.—Michelangelo com- 
missioned to paint the other side.—The Cartoons for the Battle 
of the Standard and the Battle of Pisa.—Michelangelo’s literary 
interests become prominent at this period. 


L 


MICHELANGELO returned to Florence in the spring 
of 1501. Condivi says that domestic affairs com- 
pelled him to leave Rome, and the correspondence 
with his father makes this not improbable. He 
brought a heightened reputation back to his native 
city. The Bacchus and the Madonna della Febbre had 


COMMISSION FROM SIENA. 87 


placed him in advance of any sculptor of his time. 
Indeed, in these first years of the sixteenth century he 
may be said to have been the only Tuscan sculptor 
of commanding eminence.’ Ghiberti, Della Quercia, 
Brunelleschi, Donatello, all had joined the majority 
before his birth. The second group of distinguished 
craftsmen—Verocchio, Luca della Robbia, Rossel- 
lino, Da Maiano, Civitali, Desiderio da Settignano— 
expired at the commencement of the century. It 
seemed as though a gap in the ranks of plastic 
artists had purposely been made for the entrance 
of a predominant and tyrannous personality. Jacopo 
Tatti, called Sansovino, was the only man who might 
have disputed the place of pre-eminence with Michel- 
angelo, and Sansovino chose Venice for the theatre 
of his life-labours. In these circumstances, it is 
not singular that commissions speedily began to 
overtax the busy sculptor’s power of execution. I 
do not mean to assert that the Italians, in the year 
1501, were conscious of Michelangelo’s unrivalled 
qualities, or sensitive to the corresponding limita- 
tions which rendered these qualities eventually 
baneful to the evolution of the arts; but they 
could not help feeling that in this young man of 
twenty-six they possessed a first-rate craftsman, and 
one who had no peer among contemporaries. 

The first order of this year came from the Cardinal 


1 What his contemporaries thought of him may be seen from a letter 
of Piero Soderini to the Marchese Alberivo Malaspina of Massa (Gaye, ii. 
107) : “ Non essendo homo in Italia apto ad expedire una opera di cotesta 
qualita, é necessario che lui solo, e non altro,” &c. 


88 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Francesco Piccolomini, who was afterwards elected 
Pope in 1503, and who died after reigning three 
weeks with the title of Pius III. He wished to 
decorate the Piccolomini Chapel in the Duomo of 
Siena with fifteen statues of male saints. A contract 
was signed on June 5, by which Michelangelo agreed 
to complete these figures within the space of three 
years. One of them, a 8S. Francis, had been already 
begun by Piero Torrigiano; and this, we have some 
reason to believe, was finished by the master’s hand. 
Accounts differ about his share in the remaining 
fourteen statues; but the matter is of no great 
moment, seeing that the style of the work is con- 
ventional, and the scale of the figures disagreeably 
squat and dumpy. It seems almost impossible that 
these ecclesiastical and tame pieces should have 
been produced at the same time as the David and 
by the same hand. Neither Vasari nor Condivi 
speaks about them, although it is certain that Michel- 
angelo was held bound to his contract during several 
years. Upon the death of Pius III., he renewed it 
with the Pope’s heirs, Jacopo and Andrea Picco- 
lomini, by a deed dated September 15, 1504; and in 
1537 Anton Maria Piccolomini, to whom the inherit- 
ance succeeded, considered himself Michelangelo’s 
creditor for the sum of a hundred crowns, which had 
been paid beforehand for work not finished by the 
sculptor.’ 


1 The documents upon which these transactions rest will be found in 
G. Milanesi’s Docwmenti per la Storia dell’ Arte Senese, Siena: Porri, 





are, 
e 
; 





COMMISSION FOR THE DAVID. 89 


A far more important commission was intrusted 
to Michelangelo in August of the same year, 1501. 
Condivi, after mentioning his return to Florence, tells 
the history of the colossal David in these words: 
“Here he stayed some time, and made the statue 
which stands in front of the great door of the Palace 
of the Signory, and is called the Giant by all people. 
It came about in this way. The Board of Works 
at S. Maria del Fiore owned a piece of marble nine 
cubits in height, which had been brought from Carrara 
some hundred years before by a sculptor insufficiently 
acquainted with his art. This was evident, inasmuch 
as, wishing to convey it more conveniently and with 
less labour, he had it blocked out in the quarry, but 
in such a manner that neither he nor any one else 
was capable of extracting a statue from the block, 
either of the same size, or even on a much smaller 
scale. The marble being, then, useless for any good 
purpose, Andrea del Monte San Savino thought 
that he might get possession of it from the Board, 
and begged them to make him a present of it, pro- 
mising that he would add certain pieces of stone and 
carve a statue from it. Before they made up their 
minds to give it, they sent for Michelangelo; then, 
after explaining the wishes and the views of Andrea, 
and considering his own opinion that it would be 


1856, vol. iii. A drawing of a bearded saint, heavily draped, cowled, 
and holding a book in his left hand, now at the British Museum, is 
ascribed to Michelangelo. It may have been made for one of the 
Piccolomini statues. 


go LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


possible to extract a good thing from the block, they 
finally offered it to him. Michelangelo accepted, 
added no pieces, and got the statue out so exactly, 
that, as any one may see, in the top of the head and 
at the base some vestiges of the rough surface of 
the marble still remain. He did the same in other 
works, as, for instance, in the Contemplative Life 
upon the tomb of Julius; indeed, it is a sign left by 
masters on their work, proving them to be absolute 
in their art. But in the David it was much more 
remarkable, for this reason, that the difficulty of the 
task was not overcome by adding pieces ; and also he 
had to contend with an ill-shaped marble. As he 
used to say himself, it is impossible, or at least 
extraordinarily difficult, in statuary to set right the 
faults of the blocking out. He received for this 
work 400 ducats, and carried it out in eighteen 
months.” 

The sculptor who had spoiled this block of 
marble is called ‘‘ Maestro Simone” by Vasari; but 
the abundant documents in our possession, by aid of 
which we are enabled to trace the whole history of 
Michelangelo’s David with minuteness, show that 
Vasari was misinformed. The real culprit was 
Agostino di Antonio di Duccio, or Guccio, who had 
succeeded with another colossal statue for the 
Duomo.” He is honourably known in the history of 
Tuscan sculpture by his reliefs upon the fagade of 


1 These documents will be found in Gaye, vol. ii. pp. 454-464. 
2 See Gaye, vol. il. pp. 465-468. 





THE SPOILED BLOCK OF MARBLE. gI 


the Duomo at Modena, describing episodes in the 
life of S. Gemignano, by the romantically charming 
reliefs in marble, with terracotta settings, on the Ora- 
tory of S. Bernardino at Perugia, and by a large 
amount of excellent surface-work in stone upon the 
chapels of S. Francesco at Rimini... We gather from 
one of the contracts with Agostino that the marble 
was originally blocked out for some prophet.? But 
Michelangelo resolved to make a David; and two 
wax models, now preserved in the Museo Buonarroti, 
neither of which corresponds exactly with the statue 
as it exists, show that he felt able to extract a 
colossal figure in various attitudes from the damaged 
block. In the first contract signed between the Con- 
suls of the Arte della Lana, the Operai del Duomo, 
and the sculptor, dated August 16, 1501, the terms 
are thus settled: ‘That the worthy master Michel- 
angelo, son of Lodovico Buonarroti, citizen of 
Florence, has been chosen to fashion, complete, and 
finish to perfection that male statue called the 


1 Agostino was born in 1418. He worked at Modena in 1442, and in 
1446 was banished on a charge of theft from Florence. Yriarte con- 
jectures that after this date he laboured at Rimini, ascribing to him the 
bas-reliefs of the planets and the zodiac in the Chapel of the S. Sacra- 
ment, together with the stvacciato decorations of the Chapel of S. Sigis- 
mond and those of the Chapel of S. Gaudenzio, all in the Temple of 
the Malatesta family. Between 1459 and 1461 he worked at Perugia. 
The Operai del Duomo at Florence commissioned the Colossus in 1464, 
and withdrew their order in 1466. He died after 1481. See Yriarte, 
Rimini. Paris: Rothschild, 1882, p. 407, &c. 

2 “Tocaverunt Aghostino Ghucci, scultori, cit. flor., unam figuram di 
marmo biancho a chavare a Charara di braccia nove, a ghuisa di 
gughante, in vece e nome di. . . profeta.” 


92 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Giant, of nine cubits in height,’ now existing in the 
workshop of the cathedral, blocked out aforetime by 
Master Agostino of Florence, and badly blocked ; 
and that the work shall be completed within the 
term of the next ensuing two years, dating from 
September, at a salary of six golden florins per 
month ;? and that what is needful for the accom- 
plishment of this task, as workmen, timbers, &C., 
which he may require, shall be supplied him by the 
Operai ; and when the statue is finished, the Consuls 
and Operai who shall be in office shall estimate 
whether he deserve a larger recompense, and this 
shall be left to their consciences.” 


II. 


Michelangelo began to work on a Monday morn- 
ing, September 13, in a wooden shed erected for the 
purpose, not far from the cathedral. On the 28th 
of February 1502, the statue, which is now called 
for the first time “ the Giant, or David,” was brought 
so far forward that the judges declared it to be half 
finished, and decided that the sculptor should be 
paid in all 400 golden florins, including the stipu- 
lated salary. He seems to have-laboured assidu- 

1 The Florentine braccio is said to be fifty-nine centimétres, The 


English cubit is eighteen inches. 
2 Gotti estimates six florins at 57.60 in francs, or about £2, 6s. 


A COUNCIL OF NOTABLES. 93 


ously during the next two years, for by a minute of 
the 25th of January 1504 the David is said to be 
almost entirely finished. On this date a solemn 
council of the most important artists. resident in 
Florence was convened at the Opera del Duomo to 
consider where it should be placed. 

We possess full minutes of this meeting, and they 
are so curious that I shall not hesitate to give a 
somewhat detailed account of the proceedings.} 
Messer Francesco Filarete, the chief herald of the 
Signory, and himself an architect of some preten- 
sions, opened the discussion in a short speech to 
this effect: “I have turned over in my mind those 
suggestions which my judgment could afford me. 
You have two places where the statue may be set 
up: the first, that where the Judith stands; the 
second, in the middle of the courtyard where the 
David is.” The first might be selected, because the 
Judith is an omen of evil, and no fit object where it 
stands, we having the cross and lily for our ensign ; 
besides, it is not proper that the woman should kill 
the male; and, above all, this statue was erected 
under an evil constellation, since you have gone 
continually from bad to worse since then. Pisa has 
been lost too. The David of the courtyard is im- 
perfect in the right leg; and so I should counsel 
you to put the Giant in one of these places, but I 

1 Gaye, ii. 455. 

2 Donatello’s Judith used to stand outside the great door of the 


Palazzo Vecchio, where the David was eventually placed. A bronze 
David by Donatello stood in the court of the Palazzo. 


94 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


give the preference myself to that of the Judith.” 
The herald, it will be perceived, took for granted 
that Michelangelo’s David would be erected in the 
immediate neighbourhood of the Palazzo Vecchio. 
The next speaker, Francesco Monciatto, a wood- 
carver, advanced the view that it ought to be placed 
in front of the Duomo, where the Colossus was 
originally meant to be put up. He was immediately 
followed, and his resolution was seconded, by no less 
personages than the painters Cosimo Rosselli and 
Sandro Botticelli. Then Giuliano da San Gallo, the 
illustrious architect, submitted a third opinion to 
the meeting. He began his speech by observing 
that he agreed with those who wished to choose the 
steps of the Duomo, but due consideration caused 
him to alter his mind. ‘The imperfection of the 
marble, which is softened by exposure to the air, 
rendered the durability of the statue doubtful. He 
therefore voted for the middle of the Loggia dei 
Lanzi, where the David would be under cover.” 
Messer Angelo di Lorenzo Manfidi, second herald 
of the Signory, rose to state a professional objection. 
“The David, if erected under the middle arch of the 
Loggia, would break the order of the ceremonies 
practised there by the Signory and other magis- 
trates. He therefore proposed that the arch facing 
the Palazzo (where Donatello’s. Judith is now) 
should be chosen.”” ‘The three succeeding speakers, 
people of no great importance, gave their votes in 
favour of the chief herald’s resolution. Others 


SITE CHOSEN FOR THE DAVID. 95 


followed San Gallo, among whom was the illustrious 
Lionardo da Vinci. He thought the statue could 
be placed under the middle arch of the Loggia 
without hindrance to ceremonies of state. Salvestro, 
a jeweller, and Filippino Lippi, the painter, were 
of opinion that the neighbourhood of the Palazzo 
should be adopted, but that the precise spot should 
be left to the sculptor’s choice. Gallieno, an em- 
broiderer, and David Ghirlandajo, the painter, sug- 
gested a new place—namely, where the lion or 
Marzocco stood on the Piazza. Antonio da San 
Gallo, the architect, and Michelangelo, the gold- 
smith, father of Baccio Bandinelli, supported Giuli- 
ano da San Gallo’s motion. Then Giovanni Piffero— 
that is, the father of Benvenuto Cellini—brought the 
discussion back to the courtyard of the palace. He 
thought that in the Loggia the statue would be 
only partly seen, and that it would run risks of 
injury from scoundrels. Giovanni delle Corniole, 
the incomparable gem-cutter, who has left us the 
best portrait of Savonarola, voted with the two San 
Galli, “‘ because he hears the stone is soft.” Piero 
di Cosimo, the painter, and teacher of Andrea del 
Sarto, wound up the speeches with a strong recom- 
mendation that the choice of the exact spot should 
be left to Michelangelo Buonarroti. This was even- 
tually decided on, and he elected to have his David 
set up in the place preferred by the chief herald— 
that is to say, upon the steps of the Palazzo Vecchio, 
on the right side of the entrance. 


96 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


The next thing was to get the mighty mass of 
sculptured marble safely moved from the Duomo 
to the Palazzo. On the 1st of April, Simone del 
Pollajuolo, called I1 Cronaca, was commissioned to 
make the necessary preparations ; but later on, upon 
the 30th, we find Antonio da San Gallo, Baccio 
d’Agnolo, Bernardo della Ciecha, and Michelangelo 
associated with him in the work of transportation. 
An enclosure of stout beams and planks was made 
and placed on movable rollers. In the middle of 
this the statue hung suspended, with a certain 
liberty of swaying to the shocks and lurches of the 
vehicle. More than forty men were employed upon 
the windlasses which drew it slowly forward. In 
a contemporary record we possess a full account 
of the transit:1 ‘‘On the 14th of May 1504, the 
marble Giant was taken from the Opera. It came 
out at 24 o'clock, and they broke the wall above 
the gateway enough to let it pass. ‘That night some 
stones were thrown at the Colossus with intent to 
harm it. Watch had to be kept at night; and it 
made way very slowly, bound as it was upright, 
suspended in the air with enormous beams and 
intricate machinery of ropes. It took four days to 
reach the Piazza, arriving on the 18th at the hour 
of 12. More than forty men were employed to make 
it go; and there were fourteen rollers joined be- 
neath it, which were changed from hand to hand. 
Afterwards, they worked until the 8th of June 


1 Gaye, vol. ii. p. 464. 





WHOLE FIGURE A ARM OF THE DAVID. 








“ 


SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF THE DAVID. 97 


1504 to place it on the platform (ringhiera) where 
the Judith used to stand. The Judith was re- 
moved and set upon the ground within the palace. 
The said Giant was the work of Michelangelo 
Buonarroti.” ? 

Where the masters of Florence placed it, under 
the direction of its maker, Michelangelo’s great 
white David stood for more than three centuries 
uncovered, open to all injuries of frost and rain, 
and to the violence of citizens, until, for the better 
preservation of this masterpiece of modern art, it 
was removed in 1873 to a hall of the Accademia 
delle Belle Arti.2 On the whole, it has suffered 
very little. Weather has slightly worn away the 
extremities of the left foot; and in 1527, during a 
popular tumult, the left arm was broken by a huge 
stone cast by the assailants of the palace. Giorgio 
Vasari tells us how, together with his friend Cec- 
chino Salviati, he collected the scattered pieces, and 
brought them to the house of Michelangelo Salviati, 
the father of Cecchino.* They were subsequently 
put together by the care of the Grand Duke Cosimo, 
and restored to the statue in the year 1543.‘ 

1 In a note to Gotti, vol. i. p. 29, there is another interesting account 
of this transit of the David, from the MS. Stor. Fior. of Pietro Parenti. 


* For a full account of this transaction, see Gotti, vol. ii, pp. 35-51. 
® Vasari, vol, xii. p. 49. * Gotti, vol. i. p. 31. 


VOL, I. G 


98 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


III. 


In the David Michelangelo first displayed that 
quality of terribilita, of spirit-quailing, awe-inspiring 
force, for which he afterwards became so famous. 
The statue imposes, not merely by its size and 
majesty and might, but by something vehement in 
the conception. He was, however, far from having 
yet adopted those systematic proportions for the 
human body which later on gave an air of mono- 
tonous impressiveness to all his figures. On the 
contrary, this young giant strongly recalls the model ; 
still more strongly indeed than the Bacchus did. 
Wishing perhaps to adhere strictly to the Biblical 
story, Michelangelo studied a lad whose frame was 
not developed. The David, to state the matter 
frankly, is a colossal hobbledehoy. His body, in 
breadth of the thorax, depth of the abdomen, and 
general stoutness, has not grown up to the scale 
of the enormous hands and feet and heavy head. 
We feel that he wants at least two years to become 
a fully developed man, passing from adolescence to 
the maturity of strength and beauty. This close 
observance of the imperfections of the model at a 
certain stage of physical growth is very remarkable, 
and not altogether pleasing in a statue more than 
nine feet high. Both Donatello and Verocchio had 
treated their Davids in the same realistic manner, 





DESCRIPTION OF THE DAVID. 99 


but they were working on a small scale and in 
bronze. I insist upon this point, because students 
of Michelangelo have been apt to overlook his ex- 
treme sincerity and naturalism in the first stages of 
his career. 

Having acknowledged that the head of David is 
too massive and the extremities too largely formed 
for ideal beauty, hypercriticism can hardly find fault 
with the modelling and execution of each part. 
The attitude selected is one of great dignity and 
vigour. The heroic boy, quite certain of victory, 
is excited by the coming contest. His brows are 
violently contracted, the nostrils tense and quivering, 
the eyes fixed keenly on the distant Philistine. His 
larynx rises visibly, and the sinews of his left thigh 
tighten, as though the whole spirit of the man were 
braced for a supreme endeavour. In his right hand, 
kept at a just middle point between the hip and 
knee, he holds the piece of wood on which his sling 
is hung. The sling runs round his back, and the 
centre of it, where the stone bulges, is held with the 
left hand, poised upon the left shoulder, ready to 
be loosed. We feel that the next movement will 
involve the right hand straining to its full extent 
the sling, dragging the stone away, and whirling it 
into the air; when, after it has sped to strike 
Goliath in the forehead, the whole lithe body of 
the lad will have described a curve, and recovered 
its perpendicular position on the two firm legs, 


Michelangelo invariably chose some decisive moment 


100 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


in the action he had to represent; and though he 
was working here under difficulties, owing to the 
limitations of the damaged block at his disposal, he 
contrived to suggest the imminence of swift and 
sudden energy which shall disturb the equilibrium 
of his young giant’s pose. Critics of this statue, 
deceived by its superficial resemblance to some 
Greek athletes at rest, have neglected the candid 
realism of the momentary act foreshadowed. ‘They 
do not understand the meaning of the sling. 
Even Heath Wilson, for instance, writes: “The 
massive shoulders are thrown back, the right arm 
is pendent, and the right hand grasps resolutely the 
stone with which the adversary is to be slain.’”? 
This entirely falsifies the sculptor’s motive, misses 
the meaning of the sling, renders the broad strap 
behind the back superfluous, and changes into mere 
plastic symbolism what Michelangelo intended to be 
a moment caught from palpitating life. 

It has often been remarked that David’s head is 
modelled upon the type of Donatello’s S. George 
at Orsanmichele. The observation is just; and it 
suggests a comment on the habit Michelangelo early 
formed of treating the face idealistically, however 
much he took from study of his models. Vasari, 
for example, says that he avoided portraiture, and 
composed his faces by combining several individuals. 
We shail see a new ideal type of the male head 


1 Heath Wilson, p. 51. Springer, and indeed all critics, make the 
same mistake. 





RIGHT AND LEFT LEGS OF THE DAVID. 





METHODS OF WORKING MARBLE. IOI 


emerge in a group of statues, among which the 
most distinguished is Giuliano de’ Medici at San 
Lorenzo. We have already seen a female type 
created in the Madonnas of S. Peter’s and Notre 
Dame at Bruges. But this is not the place to dis- 
cuss Michelangelo's theory of form in general. ‘That 
must be reserved until we enter the Sistine Chapel, 
in order to survey the central and the crowning 
product of his genius in its prime. 

We have every reason to believe that Michel- 
angelo carved his David with no guidance but 
drawings and a small wax model of about eighteen 
inches in height. The inconvenience of this method, 
which left the sculptor to wreak his fury on the 
marble with mallet and chisel, can be readily con- 
ceived. In a famous passage, disinterred by M. 
Mariette from a French scholar of the sixteenth 
century, we have this account of the fiery master’s 
system :' “I am able to affirm that I have seen 
Michelangelo, at the age of more than sixty years, 
and not the strongest for his time of life, knock off 
more chips from an extremely hard marble in one 
quarter of an hour than three young stone-cutters 
could have done in three or four—a thing quite 
incredible to one who has not seen it. He put 
such impetuosity and fury into his work, that I 
thought the whole must fly to pieces; hurling to 
the ground at one blow great fragments three or 


1 Condivi, p. 188. Mariette quotes from Blaise de Vigenere’s annota- 
tions to the Images of Philostratus. 


102 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


four inches thick, shaving the line so closely, that 
if he had overpassed it by a hair’s-breadth, he ran 
the risk of losing all, since one cannot mend a 
marble afterwards or repair mistakes, as one does 
with figures of clay and stucco.” It is said that, 
owing to this violent way of attacking his marble, 
Michelangelo sometimes bit too deep into the stone, 
and had to abandon a promising piece of sculp- 
ture. This is one of the ways of accounting for his 
numerous unfinished statues. Accordingly a myth 
has sprung up representing the great master as 
working in solitude upon huge blocks, with nothing 
but a sketch in wax before him. Fact is always 
more interesting than fiction ; and, while I am upon 
the topic of his method, I will introduce what 
Cellini has left written on this subject. In his 
treatise on the Art of Sculpture, Cellini lays down 
the rule that sculptors in stone ought first to make 
a little model two palms high, and after this to 
form another as large as the statue will have to be.’ 
He illustrates this by a critique of his illustrious 
predecessors. ‘ Albeit many able artists rush boldly 
on the stone with the fierce force of mallet and 
chisel, relying on the little model and a good 
design, yet the result is never found by them to be 
so satisfactory as when they fashion the model on 
a large scale. This is proved by our Donatello, 
who was a Titan in the art, and afterwards by 


1 I Trattati dell? Oreficeria, etc., dt Benvenuto Cellini. Firenze: Le 
Monnier, 1857, p. 197. 





CELLIN’?S AND VASARI’S STATEMENTS. 103 


the stupendous Michelangelo, who worked in both 
ways. Discovering latterly that the small models fell 
far short of what his excellent genius demanded, 
he adopted the habit of making most careful models 
exactly of the same size as the marble statue was 
to be. ‘This we have seen with our own eyes in the 
Sacristy of S. Lorenzo. Next, when a man is satis- 
fied with his full-sized model, he must take charcoal, 
and sketch out the main view of his figure on the 
marble in such wise that it shall be distinctly traced ; 
for he who has not previously settled his design may 
sometimes find himself deceived by the chiselling 
irons. Michelangelo’s method in this matter was 
the best. He used first to sketch in the principal 
aspect, and then to begin work by removing the 
surface stone upon that side, just as if he intended 
to fashion a figure in half-relief; and thus he went 
on gradually uncovering the rounded form.” 

Vasari, speaking of four rough-hewn Captives, 
possibly the figures now in a grotto of the Boboli 
Gardens, says:’ ‘They are well adapted for teach- 
ing a beginner how to extract statues from the 
marble without injury to the stone. The safe 
method which they illustrate may be described as 
follows. You first take a model in wax or some 
other hard material, and place it lying in a vessel 
full of water. The water, by its nature, presents a 
level surface; so that, if you gradually lift the 
model, the higher parts are first exposed, while the 


1 Vasari, xii. 273. 


104 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


lower parts remain submerged ; and proceeding thus, 
the whole round shape at length appears above the 
water. Precisely in the same way ought statues 
to be hewn out from the marble with the chisel; 
first uncovering the highest surfaces, and proceeding 
to disclose the lowest. This method was followed 
by Michelangelo while blocking out the Captives, 
and therefore his Excellency the Duke was fain 
to have them used as models by the students in 
his Academy.” It need hardly be remarked that 
the ingenious process of “‘ pointing the marble” by 
means of the ‘pointing machine” and “scale- 
stones,’ which is at present universally in use 
among sculptors, had not been invented in the six- 
teenth century. 


IV. 


I cannot omit a rather childish story which 
Vasari tells about the David.2 After it had been 
placed upon its pedestal before the palace, and 
while the scaffolding was still there, Piero Soderini, 
who loved and admired Michelangelo, told him 
that he thought the nose too large. The sculptor 
immediately ran up the ladder till he reached a 
point upon the level of the giant’s shoulder. He 
then took his hammer and chisel, and, having con- 
cealed some dust of marble in the hollow of his 


1 Vasari, xii. 174. 





TID. 


THE Day 


HAND oF 


IGHT 


R 





PIERO SODERINI. 105 


~~ 


hand, pretended to work off a portion from the sur- 
face of the nose. In reality he left it as he found it; 
but Soderini, seeing the marble dust fall scattering 
through the air, thought that his hint had been 
taken. When, therefore, Michelangelo called down 
to him, “ Look at it now!” Soderini shouted up in 
reply, “I am far more pleased with it; you have 
given life to the statue.” 

At this time Piero Soderini, a man of excellent 
parts and sterling character, though not gifted with 
that mixture of audacity and cunning which im- 
pressed the Renaissance imagination, was Gon- 
falonier of the Republic. He had been elected to 
the supreme magistracy for life, and was practically 
Doge of Florence. His friendship proved on more 
than one occasion of some service to Michelangelo ; 
and while the gigantic David was in progress he 
gave the sculptor a new commission, the history of 
which must now engage us.’ The Florentine envoys 
to France had already written in June 1501 from 
Lyons, saying that Pierre de Rohan, Maréchal de 
Gié, who stood high in favour at the court of Louis 
XII., greatly desired a copy of the bronze David by 
Donatello in the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio. 
He appeared willing to pay for it, but the envoys 
thought that he expected to have it as a present. 
The French alliance was a matter of the highest 


1 The documents relating to this bronze David will be found in Gaye, 
vol. ii. pp. 52, 55, 58-61, &c., down to 109. The whole series of events 
is well described in Z’Ciuvre et la Vie, pp. 242 et seg. 


106 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


importance to Florence, and at this time the Re- 
public was heavily indebted to the French crown. 
Soderini, therefore, decided to comply with the 
Marshal’s request, and on the 12th of August 1502 
Michelangelo undertook to model a David of two 
cubits and a quarter within six months.’ In the 
bronze-casting he was assisted by a special master, 
Benedetto da Rovezzano.? During the next two 
years a brisk correspondence was kept up between 
the envoys and the Signory about the statue, show- 
ing the Marshal’s impatience. Meanwhile De Rohan 
became Duke of Nemours in 1503 by his marriage 
with a sister of Louis d’Armagnac, and shortly after- 
wards he fell into disgrace. Nothing more was to be 
expected from him at the court of Blois. But the 
statue was in progress, and the question arose to 
whom it should be given. The choice of the Signory 
fell on Florimond Robertet, secretary of finance, 
whose favour would be useful to the Florentines 
in their pecuniary transactions with the King. A 
long letter from the envoy, Francesco Pandolfini, in 
September 1505, shows that Robertet’s mind had 
been sounded on the subject; and we gather from 
a minute of the Signory, dated November 6, 1508, 


1 There is every reason to suppose that this David was an original 
work ; but whether Donatello’s bronze David was also copied does not 
appear. Condivi (p. 22) says: “ At the request of his great friend Piero 
Soderini he cast a life-size statue, which was sent to France, and also 
a David with Goliath beneath his feet. That which one sees in the 
courtyard of the Palazzo de’ Signori is by the hand of Donatello.” 

% See Vasari, xii. 350. 





THE BRONZE DAVID. 107 


that at last the bronze David, weighing about 800 
pounds, had been “packed in the name of God” 
and sent to Signa on its way to Leghorn. Robertet 
received it in due course, and placed it in the court- 
yard of his chateau of Bury, near Blois. Here it 
remained for more thana century, when it was 
removed to the chateau of Villeroy. There it dis- 
appeared. We possess, however, a fine pen-and- 
ink drawing by the hand of Michelangelo, which 
may well have been a design for this second David.’ 
The muscular and naked youth, not a mere lad like 
the colossal statue, stands firmly posed upon his 
left leg with the trunk thrown boldly back. His 
right foot rests on the gigantic head of Goliath, and 
his left hand, twisted back upon the buttock, holds 
what seems meant for the sling. We see here what 
Michelangelo’s conception of an ideal David would 
have been when working under conditions more 
favourable than the damaged block afforded. On 
the margin of the page the following words may be 
clearly traced: ‘‘Davicte cholla fromba e io chol- 
larcho Michelagniolo,’—David with the sling, and I 
with the bow.’ 

Meanwhile Michelangelo received a still more 


1 In the Louvre. Part of the drawing is engraved on p. 243 of 
Li Giuvre et la Vie. 

2 What is meant by the bow I cannot guess. It seems, however, that 
Michelangelo was meditating verses, for lower down we read Loct’ é 
lalta cholonna (first words of Petrarch’s sonnet, 2, In M.diM.L.) The 
Italians say Con l’arco della schiena when they wish to express “ with 
all one’s might.” 


108 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


important commission on the 24th of April 1503. 
The Consuls of the Arte della Lana and the Operai of 
the Duomo ordered twelve Apostles, each 44 cubits 
high, to be carved out of Carrara marble and placed 
inside the church. The sculptor undertook: to fur- 
nish one each year, the Board of Works defraying 
all expenses, supplying the costs of Michelangelo's 
living and his assistants, and paying him two golden 
florins a month. Besides this, they had a house 
built for him in the Borgo Pinti after I] Cronaca’s 
design.’ He occupied this house free of charges 
while he was in Florence, until it became manifest 
that the contract of 1503 would never be carried 
out. Later on, in March 1508, the tenement was 
let on lease to him and his heirs. But he only 
held it a few months; for on the 15th of June the 
lease was cancelled, and the house transferred to 
Sigismondo Martelli. 

The only trace surviving of these twelve Apostles 
is the huge blocked-out S. Matteo, now in the court- 
yard of the Accademia. Vasari writes of it as 
follows: “He also began a statue in marble of 
S. Matteo, which, though it is but roughly hewn, 
shows perfection of design, and teaches sculptors 
how to extract figures from the stone without ex- 
posing them to injury, always gaining ground by 
removing the superfluous material, and being able 
to withdraw or change in case of need.”* This 
stupendous sketch or shadow of a mighty form is 

1 Gaye, vol, ii. pp. 92, 473-478. 2 Vasari, xii. 177. 





ID. 


, 


ND Day 


G FOR SECO 


DRAWIN 





THE S. MATTEO. 109 


indeed instructive for those who would understand 
Michelangelo’s method. It fully illustrates the pas- 
sages quoted above from Cellini and Vasari, showing 
how a design of the chief view of the statue must 
have been chalked upon the marble, and how the un- 
finished figure gradually emerged into relief. Were 
we to place it in a horizontal position on the ground, 
that portion of the rounded form which has been 
disengaged from the block would emerge just in 
the same way as a model from a bath of water 
not quite deep enough to cover it. At the same 
time we learn to appreciate the observations of 
Vigenere while we study the titanic chisel-marks, 
grooved deeply in the body of the stone, and carried 
to the length of three or four inches. The direction 
of these strokes proves that Michelangelo worked 
equally with both hands, and the way in which 
they are hatched and crossed upon the marble 
reminds one of the pen-drawing of a bold draughts- 
man. ‘The mere surface-handling of the stone has 
remarkable affinity in linear effect to a pair of the 
master’s pen-designs for a naked man, now in the 
Louvre. On paper he seems to hew with the pen, 
on marble to sketch with the chisel. The saint ap- 
pears literally to be growing out of his stone prison, 
as though he were alive and enclosed there waiting 
to be liberated. ‘This recalls Michelangelo’s fixed 
opinion regarding sculpture, which he defined as 
the art “ that works by force of taking away.”’* In 
1 Lettere, No. cdlxii. 


Ito LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


his writings we often find the idea expressed that 
a statue, instead of being a human thought invested 
with external reality by stone, is more truly to be 
regarded as something which the sculptor seeks 
and finds inside his marble—a kind of marvellous 
discovery. Thus he says in one of his poems :? 
“Lady, in hard and craggy stone the mere removal 
of the surface gives being to a figure, which ever 
erows the more the stone is hewn away.” And 
again ?— 

The best of artists hath no thought to show 

Which the rough stone in its superfluous shell 

Doth not include: to break the marble spell 

Is all the hand that serves the brain can do. 
S. Matthew seems to palpitate with life while we 
scrutinise the amorphous block; and yet there is 
little there more tangible than some such form as 
fancy loves to image in the clouds. 

To conclude what I have said in this section 
about Michelangelo's method of working on the 
marble, I must confirm what I have stated about 
his using both left and right hand while chiselling. 
Raffaello da Montelupo, who was well acquainted 
with him personally, informs us of the fact :° 
“Here I may mention that I am in the habit of 
drawing with my left hand, and that. once, at Rome, 

1 Madrigale xii., Rime, p. 37. 2 Sonnet xv., Rume, p. 173. 

8 This passage occurs in Montelupo’s autobiography, the original of 
which may be found in Barbéra’s diamond edition of Italian classics, 


Autobiografie, ed. A. D’Ancona, 1859. I have borrowed the above 
translation from Perkins’s Tuscan Seulptors, vol, ii, p. 74. 





TWO CIRCULAR BAS-RELIEF MADONNAS. 111 


while I was sketching the Arch of Trajan from the 
Colosseum, Michelangelo and Sebastiano del Piombo, 
both of whom were naturally left-handed (although 
they did not work with the left hand excepting 
when they wished to use great strength), stopped to 
see me, and expressed great wonder, no sculptor or 
painter ever having done so before me, as far as I 
know.” 


WE 


If Vasari can be trusted, it was during this resid- 
ence at Florence, when his hands were so fully 
occupied, that Michelangelo found time to carve 
the two tondi, Madonnas in relief enclosed in 
circular spaces, which we still possess. One of 
them, made for Taddeo Taddei, is now at Burlington 
House, having been acquired by the Royal Academy 
through the medium of Sir George Beaumont. This 
ranks among the best things belonging to that Cor- 
poration. The other, made for Bartolommeo Pitti, 
will be found in the Palazzo del Bargello at Florence. 
Of the two, that of our Royal Academy is the more 
ambitious in design, combining singular grace and 
dignity in the Madonna with action playfully sug- 
gested in the infant Christ and little S. John. That 
of the Bargello is simpler, more tranquil, and more 


1 The bas-relief has been cast, and used to be on sale at Brucciani’s, 
but I know of no photographic reproduction from the original. 


112 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


stately. The one recalls the motive of the Bruges 
Madonna, the other almost anticipates the Delphic 
Sibyl We might fancifully call them a pair of 
native pearls or uncut gems, lovely by reason even 
of their sketchiness. Whether by intention, as 
some critics have supposed,’ or for want of time to 
finish, as I am inclined to believe, these two reliefs _ 
are left in a state of incompleteness which is highly 
suggestive. Taking the Royal Academy group first ; 
the absolute roughness of the groundwork supplies 
an admirable background to the figures, which seem 
to emerge from it as though the whole of them 
were there, ready to be disentangled. ‘The most 
important portions of the composition—Madonna’s 
head and throat, the drapery of her powerful breast, 
on which the child Christ reclines, and the naked 
body of the boy—are wrought to a point which only 
demands finish. Yet parts of these two figures 
remain undetermined. Christ's feet are still im- 
prisoned in the clinging marble; his left arm and 
hand are only indicated, and his right hand is resting 
on a mass of broken stone, which hides a portion of 
his mother’s drapery, but leaves the position of her 
hand uncertain. The infant S. John, upright upon 
his feet, balancing the chief group, is hazily subordin- 
ate. The whole of his form looms blurred through 
the veil of stone, and what his two hands and arms are 
doing with the hidden right arm and hand of the 


* Mr. Pater, Studies in the History of the Renarssance, and M. Guillaume, 
LD uvre et la Vie, for instance, 





Hoty FAMILY. 


ELIEF OF 


R 


Bas 





CRITICISM OF THESE MEDALLIONS. 113 


Virgin may hardly be conjectured. It is clear that 
on this side of the composition the marble was to 
have been more deeply cut, and that we have the 
highest surfaces of the relief brought into prominence 
at those points where, as I have said, little is want- 
ing but the finish of the graver and the file. The 
Bargello group is simpler and more intelligible. Its 
composition by masses being quite apparent, we 
can easily construct the incomplete figure of S. John 
in the background. What results from the study 
of these two circular sketches in marble is, that 
although Michelangelo believed all sculpture to be 
imperfect in so far as it approached the style of 
painting,” yet he did not disdain to labour in stone 
with various planes of relief which should produce 
the effect of chiaroscuro. Furthermore, they illus- 
trate what Cellini and Vasari have already taught 
us about his method. He refused to work by piece- 
meal, but began by disengaging the first, the second, 
then the third surfaces, following a model and a 
drawing which controlled the cutting. Whether 
he preferred to leave off when his idea was suffi- 
_ ciently indicated, or whether his numerous engage- 
ments prevented him from excavating the lowest 
surfaces, and lastly polishing the whole, is a ques- 
tion which must for ever remain undecided. Con- 
sidering the exquisite elaboration given to the Pieta 
of the Vatican, the Madonna at Bruges, the Bacchus 
and the David, the Moses and parts of the Medicean 


1 Lettere, No. cdl xii. 
VOL. I. Hq 


II4 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


monuments, I incline to think that, with time enough 
at his disposal, he would have carried out these 
rounds in all their details. A criticism he made 
on Donatello, recorded for us by Condivi, to the 
effect that this great master’s works lost their proper 
effect on close inspection through a want of finish, 
confirms my opinion.’ Still there is no doubt 
that he must have been pleased, as all true lovers 
of art are, with the picturesque effect—an effect 
as of things half seen in dreams or emergent from 
primeval substances—which the imperfection of the 
craftsman’s labour leaves upon the memory. 

At this time Michelangelo's mind seems to have 
been much occupied with circular compositions. He 
painted a large Holy Family of this shape for his 
friend Angelo Doni, which may, I think, be reckoned 
the only easel-picture attributable with absolute cer- 
tainty to his hand.? Condivi simply says that he 
received seventy ducats for this fine work. Vasari 
adds one of his prattling stories to the effect that 
Doni thought forty sufficient ; whereupon Michel- 
angelo took the picture back, and said he would not 


1 Condivi, p. 22. 

2 If the enigmatical Deposition in the National Gallery be really 
Michelangelo’s work, it might perhaps be assigned to this period. The 
head of the old man supporting Christ seems to be drawn from the same 
model as the S. Joseph ; but I regard this as a feeble attempt to repro- 
duce the Doni S, Joseph by a later craftsman. I1t can be stated here 
that none of the pictures attributed to Michelangelo, as the Fates of 
the Pitti and his own portrait in the Capitol, are by his hand. I rely 
on Heath Wilson for the Doni Madonna being an oil-painting. Heath 
Wilson, p. 60. 


THE DONI HOLY FAMILY. 115 


let it go for less than a hundred: Doni then offered 
the original sum of seventy, but Michelangelo re- 
plied that if he was bent on bargaining he should 
not pay less than 140. Be this as it may, one of 
the most characteristic products of the master’s 
genius came now into existence. The Madonna 
is seated in a kneeling position on the ground; 
she throws herself vigorously backward, lifting the 
little Christ upon her right arm, and presenting 
him to a bald-headed old man, S. Joseph, who 
seems about to take him in his arms. This group, 
which forms a tall pyramid, is balanced on both 
sides by naked figures of young men reclining 
against a wall at some distance, while a remarkably 
ugly little S. John can be discerned in one corner. 
There is something very powerful and original in 
the composition of this sacred picture, which, as in 
the case of all Michelangelo’s early work, develops 
the previous traditions of Tuscan art on lines which 
no one but himself could have discovered. The cen- 
tral figure of the Madonna, too, has always seemed 
to me a thing of marvellous beauty, and of stupendous 
power in the strained attitude and nobly modelled 
arms. It has often been asked what the male nudes 
have got to do with the subject. Probably Michel- 
angelo intended in this episode to surpass a Ma- 
donna by Luca Signorelli, with whose genius he 
obviously was in sympathy, and who felt, like him, 
the supreme beauty of the naked adolescent form. 
Signorelli had painted a circular Madonna with two 


116 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


nudes in the landscape distance for Lorenzo de’ Me- 
dici. The picture is hung now in the gallery of the 
Uffizi. It is enough perhaps to remark that Michel- 
angelo needed these figures for his scheme, and for 
filling the space at his disposal. He was either un- 
able or unwilling to compose a background of trees, 
meadows, and pastoral folk in the manner of his 
predecessors. Nothing but the infinite variety of 
human forms upon a barren stage of stone or arid 
earth would suit his haughty sense of beauty. ‘The 
nine persons who make up the picture are all care- 
fully studied from the life, and bear a strong Tus- 
can stamp. S. John is literally ignoble, and Christ 
is a commonplace child. The Virgin Mother is a 
magnificent contadina in the plenitude of adult 
womanhood. ‘Those, however, who follow Mr. 
Ruskin in blaming Michelangelo for carelessness 
about the human face and head, should not fail to 
notice what sublime dignity and grace he has com- 
municated to his model here. In technical execu- 
tion the Doni Madonna is faithful to old Florentine 
usage, but lifeless and unsympathetic. We are dis- 
agreeably reminded by every portion of the surface 
that Lionardo’s subtle play of tones and modulated 
shades, those sfwmature, as Italians call them, which 
transfer the mystic charm of nature to the canvas, 
were as yet unknown to the great draughtsman. 
There is more of atmosphere, of colour suggestion, 
and of chiaroscuro in the marble tondz described 
above. Moreover, in spite of very careful model- 





UFFIZI 


1 Hoty FamMiny— 


Don 


if ie 
ae a ; LES # 
tn a 

vos oe a ee 








CARTOONS FOR THE GREAT SALA. 117 


ling, Michelangelo has failed to make us feel the 
successive planes of his composition. The whole 
seems flat, and each distance, instead of being gradu- 
ated, starts forward to the eye. He required, at this 
period of his career, the relief of sculpture in order 
to express the roundness of the human form and the 
relative depth of objects placed in a receding order. 
If anything were needed to make us believe the 
story of his saying to Pope Julius II. that sculpture 
and not painting was his trade, this superb design, 
so deficient in the essential qualities of painting 
proper, would suffice. Men infinitely inferior to 
himself in genius and sense of form, a Perugino, 
a Francia, a Fra Bartolommeo, an Albertinelli, pos- 
sessed more of the magic which evokes pictorial 
beauty. Nevertheless, with all its aridity, rigidity, and 
almost repulsive hardness of colour, the Doni Madonna 
ranks among the great pictures of the world. Once 
seen it will never be forgotten: it tyrannises and 
dominates the imagination by its titanic power of 
drawing. No one, except perhaps Lionardo, could 
draw like that, and Lionardo would not have allowed 
his linear scheme to impose itself so remorselessly 
upon the mind. 


VI. 


Just at this point of his development, Michel- 
angelo was brought into competition with Lionardo 


118 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


da Vinci, the only living rival worthy of his genius. 
During the year 1503 Piero Soderini determined to 
adorn the hall of the Great Council in the Palazzo 
Vecchio with huge mural frescoes, which should 
represent scenes in Florentine history. Documents 
regarding the commencement of these works and 
the contracts made with the respective artists are 
unfortunately wanting. But it appears that Da 
Vinci received a commission for one of the long 
walls in the autumn of that year." We have items 
of expenditure on record which show that the 
Municipality of Florence assigned him the Sala 
del Papa at S. Maria Novella before February 
1504, and were preparing the necessary furniture 
for the construction of his Cartoon.” It seems that 
he was hard at work upon the ist of April, receiving 
fifteen golden florins a month for his labour. The 
subject which he chose to treat was the battle of 
Anghiari in 1440, when the Florentine mercenaries 
entirely routed the troops of Filippo Maria Visconti, 
led by Niccold Piccinino, one of the greatest generals 


of his age. In August 1504 Soderini commissioned 


1 Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Life of Raphael, vol. i. p. 213. 

2 Gaye, vol. ii. p. 88. When Martin V. took up his residence at 
Florence in 1419, quarters were assigned to him at 8S, Maria Novella, 
They came by custom to be regarded as the abode of Popes on a visit 
to the city. In the days of Eugenius IV., 1439, when the Greek ~ 
Council was transferred from Ferrara to Florence, a large hall was — 
erected for its sittings. See L’Osservatore Fiorentino (Firenze: Ricci, — 
1821), vol. iii. p. 135, for a description of the locality. | 

3 Capponi, Storia della Rep. di Furenze, vol. ii. p. 22. This was one 
of the bloodless battles of Condottiere warlare. Machiavelli says that — 
only one man was killed ; yet it had important political results. 





LIONARDO AND MICHELANGELO. 119 


Michelangelo to prepare Cartoons for the opposite 
wall of the great Sala, and assigned to him a work- 
shop in the Hospital of the Dyers at S. Onofrio. A 
minute of expenditure, under date October 31, 1504, 
shows that the paper for the Cartoon had been 
already provided; and Michelangelo continued to 
work upon it until his call to Rome at the beginning 
of 1505. Lionardo’s battle-piece consisted of two 
groups on horseback engaged in a fierce struggle 
for a standard. Michelangelo determined to select 
a subject which should enable him to display all 
his power as the supreme draughtsman of the nude. 
He chose an episode from the war with Pisa, when, 
on the 28th of July 1364, a band of 400 Florentine 
soldiers were surprised bathing by Sir John Hawk- 
wood and his English riders. It goes by the name 
of the Battle of Pisa, though the event really took 
place at Cascina on the Arno, some six miles above 
that city.’ 

We have every reason to regard the composition 
of this Cartoon as the central point in Michel- 
angelo’s life as an artist. It was the watershed, 
so to speak, which divided his earlier from his 
later manner; and if we attach any value to the 
critical judgment of his enthusiastic admirer, Cellini, 
even the roof of the Sistine fell short of its per- 
fection. Important, however, as it certainly is in 
the history of his development, I must defer speak- 


1 See Moritz Thausing, Michelangelo’s Entwurf zu dem Karton, Leip- 
zig: Seemann, 1878. 


120 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


ing of it in detail until the end of the next chapter 
For some reason or other, unknown to us, he left 
his work unfinished early in 1505, and went, at 
the Pope’s invitation, to Rome. When he returned, 
in the ensuing year, to Florence, he resumed and 
completed the design. Some notion of its size 
may be derived from what we know about the 
materials supplied for Lionardo’s Cartoon. This, 
say Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ‘‘was made up of one 
ream and twenty-nine quires, or about 288 square 
feet of royal folio paper, the mere pasting of which 
necessitated a consumption of eighty-eight pounds of 
flour, the mere lining of which required three pieces 
of Florentine linen.” * 

Condivi, summing up his notes of this period 
spent by Michelangelo at Florence, says:* “He 
stayed there some time without working to much 
purpose in his craft, having taken to the study of 
poets and rhetoricians in the vulgar tongue, and 
to the composition of sonnets for his pleasure.” 
It is difficult to imagine how Michelangelo, with 
all his engagements, found the leisure to pursue 
these literary amusements. But Condivi’s_bio- 
graphy is the sole authentic source which we pos- 
sess for the great masters own recollections of 
his past life. It is, therefore, not improbable that 
in the sentence I have quoted we may find some 
explanation of the want of finish observable in his 
productions at this point. Michelangelo was, to a 


1 Life of Raphael, vol. i. p. 213. 2 Condivi, p. 23. 


LITERARY RECREATIONS. 121 


large extent, a dreamer; and this single phrase 
throws light upon the expense of time, the barren 
spaces, in his long laborious life. The poems we 
now possess by his pen are clearly the wreck of 
a vast multitude; and most of those accessible in 
manuscript and print belong to a later stage of 
his development. Still the fact remains that in 
early manhood he formed the habit of conversing 
with writers of Italian and of fashioning his own 
thoughts into rhyme. His was a nature capable 
indeed of vehement and fiery activity, but by con- 
stitution somewhat saturnine and sluggish, only 
energetic when powerfully stimulated; a medi- 
tative man, glad enough to be inert when not 
spurred forward on the path of strenuous achieve- 
ment. And so, it seems, the literary bent took 
hold upon him as a relief from labour, as an 
excuse for temporary inaction. In his own art, 
the art of design, whether this assumed the form 
of sculpture or of painting or of architecture, he 
did nothing except at the highest pressure. All 
his accomplished work shows signs of the intensest 
cerebration. But he tried at times to slumber, sunk 
in a wise passiveness. Then he communed with 
the poets, the prophets, and the prose-writers of 
his country. We can well imagine, therefore, that, 
tired with the labours of the chisel or the brush, 
he gladly gave himself to composition, leaving half 
finished on his easel things which had for him 
their adequate accomplishment. 


122 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


I think it necessary to make these suggestions, 
because, in my opinion, Michelangelo’s inner life 
and his literary proclivities have been hitherto too 
much neglected in the scheme of his psychology. 
Dazzled by the splendour of his work, critics are 
content to skip spaces of months and years, during 
which the creative genius of the man smouldered. 
It is, as I shall try to show, in those intervals, dimly 
revealed to us by what remains of his poems and 
his correspondence, that the secret of this man, at 
once so tardy and so energetic, has to be discovered. 

A great master of a different temperament, less 
solitary, less saturnine, less sluggish, would have 
formed a school, as Raffaello did. Michelangelo 
formed no school, and was incapable of confiding the 
execution of his designs to any subordinates, ‘This 
is also a point of the highest importance to insist 
upon. Had he been other than he was—a gre- 
garious man, contented with the @ pew prés in art— 
he might have sent out all those tweive Apostles for 
the Duomo from his workshop. Raffaello would have 
done so; indeed, the work which bears his name in 
Rome could not have existed except under these 
conditions. Now nothing is left to us of the twelve 
Apostles except a rough-hewn sketch of 8. Matthew. 
Michelangelo was unwilling or unable to organise a 
band of craftsmen fairly interpretative of his man- 
ner. When his own hand failed, or when he lost 
the passion for his labour, he left the thing un- 
finished. And much of this incompleteness in his 





SOLITARY HABITS. 123 


life-work seems to me due to his being what I called 
a dreamer. He lacked the merely business faculty, 
the power of utilising hands and brains. He could 
not bring his genius into open market, and stamp 
inferior productions with his countersign. Willingly 
he retired into the solitude of his own self, to com- 
mune with great poets and to meditate upon high 
thoughts, while he indulged the emotions arising 
from forms of strength and beauty presented to his 
gaze upon the pathway of experience. 


CHAPTER IV. 


1. Giuliano della Rovere, Pope Julius II.—His political and personal 
character.—Calls Michelangelo to Rome in 1505.—The affinity 
between the two men.—2. Julius decides to build a monument 
for himself.—Sends Michelangelo to Carrara to quarry marble.— 
3. The Tragedy of the Tomb.—Condivi’s account of the first pro- 
ject.—Drawings in existence throw no certain light upon it.— 
History of changes in the design.—The contract of May 6, 1513.— 
Professor Middleton’s reconstruction of this design.— Fragments 
still existing from the marble sculptured.—The contract of July 8, 
1516.—Great reduction in the scale of the Tomb.—Contract of 
April 29, 1532.—Further reduction in the part assigned to Michel- 
angelo.—Final contract of August 20, 1542,—Completion of the 
monument now at S. Pietro in Vincoli.i—4. Return to Michel- 
angelo’s life at Rome in 1505.—Julius decides to rebuild S. Peter's, 
—History of the old Basilica.—Brainante designs a new church.— 
Bramante’s untrustworthiness.—Julius lays the foundation of S. 
Peter’s on April 18, 1506.—s. Differences between Julius and 
Michelangelo.—The Pope grows cold about the Tomb,—Michel- 

_ angelo leaves Rome in a rage.—Various accounts of what happened 
on this occasion.—6, Reaches Florence in April.—Stays there 
about six months,—Begins to work again upon the Cartoon for the 
Battle of Pisa—Loss of Lionardo’s fresco.—Destruction of Michel- 
angelo’s Cartoon.—Vasari’s two accounts of how this happened.— 
Cellini’s description of the Cartoon.—7, Vasari’s description.— 
What we know about it at the present time.—It was the turning- 
point in Michelangelo’s career as artist.—Story about his meeting 
with Lionardo, 


I. 


Amone the many nephews whom Sixtus IV. had 
raised to eminence, the most distinguished was 


124 





POPE JULIUS IL 125 


Giuliano della Rovere, Cardinal of S. Pietro in 
Vincoli, and Bishop of Ostia. ‘This man possessed 
a fiery temper, indomitable energy, and the comba- 
tive instinct which takes delight in fighting for its 
own sake. Nature intended him for a warrior; and, 
though circumstances made him chief of the Church, 
he discharged his duties as a Pontiff in the spirit of 
a general and a conqueror. When Julius II. was 
elected in November 1503, it became at once appa- 
rent that he intended to complete what his hated 
predecessors, the Borgias, had begun, by reducing 
to his sway all the provinces over which the See 
of Rome had any claims, and creating a central 
power in Italy. Unlike the Borgias, however, he 
entertained no plan of raising his own family to 
sovereignty at the expense of the Papal power. ‘The 
Della Roveres were to be contented with their 
Duchy of Urbino, which came to them by inherit- 
ance from the Montefeltri. Julius dreamed of Italy 
for the Italians, united under the hegemony of the 
Supreme Pontiff, who from Rome extended his 
spiritual authority and political influence over the 
whole of Western Europe. It does not enter into 
the scheme of this book to relate the series of wars 
and alliances in which this belligerent Pope involved 
his country, and the final failure of his policy, so 
far as the liberation of Italy from the barbarians 
was concerned. Suffice it to say, that at the close 
of his stormy reign he had reduced the States of 
the Church to more or less complete obedience, 


126 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


bequeathing to his successors an ecclesiastical king- 
dom which the enfeebled condition of the peninsula 
at large enabled them to keep intact. 

There was notbing petty or mean in Julius IL. ; 
his very faults bore a grandiose and heroic aspect. 
Turbulent, impatient, inordinate in his ambition, 
reckless in his choice of means, prolific of immense 
projects, for which a lifetime would have been too 
short, he filled the ten years of his pontificate with 
a din of incoherent deeds and vast schemes half 
accomplished. Such was the man who called Michel- 
angelo to Rome at the commencement of 1505. 
Why the sculptor was willing to leave his Cartoon 
unfinished, and to break his engagement with the 
Operai del Duomo, remains a mystery. It is said 
that the illustrious architect, Giuliano da San Gallo, 
who had worked for Julius while he was cardinal, 
and was now his principal adviser upon matters of 
art, suggested to the Pope that Buonarroti could 
serve him admirably in his ambitious enterprises for 
the embellishment of the Eternal City. We do not 
know for certain whether Julius, when he summoned 
Michelangelo from Florence, had formed the design 
of engaging him upon a definite piece of work. ‘The 
first weeks of his residence in Rome are said to have 
been spent in inactivity, until at last Julius proposed 
to erect a huge monument of marble for his own 
tomb.” 


1 This is Condivi’s statement. Still the Pope may have made some 
definite proposal before Michelangelo left Florence, Condivi thought 


SYMPATHY BETWEEN POPE AND ARTIST. 127 


Thus began the second and longest period of 
Michelangelo’s art-industry. Henceforth he was 
destined to labour for a series of Popes, following 
their whims with distracted energies and a lament- 
able waste of time. The incompleteness which 
marks so much of his performance was due to the 
rapid succession of these imperious masters, each in 
turn careless about the schemes of his predecessor, 
and bent on using the artist’s genius for his own 
profit. It is true that nowhere but in Rome could 
Michelangelo have received commissions on so vast 
a scale. Nevertheless we cannot but regret the fate 
which drove him to consume years of hampered 
industry upon what Condivi calls “the tragedy of 
Julius’s tomb,” upon quarrying and road-making for 
Leo X., upon the abortive plans at S. Lorenzo, and 
upon architectural and engineering works, which 
were not strictly within his province. At first it 
seemed as though fortune was about to smile on 
him. In Julius he found a patron who could 
understand and appreciate his powers. Between 
the two men there existed a strong bond of 
sympathy due to community of temperament. Both 
aimed at colossal achievements in their respective 
fields of action. The imagination of both was fired 
by large and simple rather than luxurious and 
subtle thoughts. Both were womine terribilr, to use 


he went there immediately after Julius’s election (November 1503). He 
knew that he did not begin to work till 1505 ; so he had a whole year 
left unaccounted for. 


£28 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


a phrase denoting vigour of character and energy of 
genius, made formidable by an abrupt, uncompro- 
mising spirit, Both worked with what the Italians 
call fury, with the impetuosity of demonic natures ; 
and both left the impress of their individuality 
stamped indelibly upon their age. Julius, in all 
things grandiose, resolved to signalise his reign 
by great buildings, great sculpture, great pictorial 
schemes. There was nothing of the dilettante and 
collector about him. He wanted creation at a 
rapid rate and in enormous quantities. ‘To indulge 
this craving, he gathered round him a band of 
demigods and ‘Titans, led by Bramante, Raffaello, 
Michelangelo, and enjoyed the spectacle of a new 
world of art arising at his bidding through their 
industry of brain and hand. 


II. 


What followed upon Michelangelo’s arrival in 
Rome may be told in Condivi’s words:' ‘‘ Having 
reached Rome, many months elapsed before Julius 


1 Condivi, p. 23. He is wrong about the many months, because he 
thought that Michelangelo came to Rome at the end of 1503. He 
really came early in 1505, perhaps after February 28, when a payment 
was made to him for the Cartoon (Gaye, ii. p. 93). He went in April 
of that year to quarry marbles at Carrara, The delay was, therefore, of 
at most a few weeks, during which he may have designed the tomb of 
Julius, 


THE TOMB OF JULIUS. 129 


decided on what great work he would employ him. 
At last it occurred to him to use his genius in the 
construction of his own tomb. The design furnished 
by Michelangelo pleased the Pope so much that he 
sent him off immediately to Carrara, with commis- 
sion to quarry as much marble as was needful for 
that undertaking. ‘wo thousand ducats were put 
to his credit with Alamanni Salviati at Florence for 
expenses. He remained more than eight months 
among those mountains, with two servants and a 
horse, but without any salary except his keep. One 
day, while inspecting the locality, the fancy took 
him to convert a hill which commands the sea-shore 
into a Colossus, visible by mariners afar. The shape 
of the huge rock, which lent itself admirably to 
such a purpose, attracted him; and he was further 
moved to emulate the ancients, who, sojourning in 
the place peradventure with the same object as him- 
self, in order to while away the time, or for some 
other motive, have left certain unfinished and rough- 
hewn monuments, which give a good specimen of 
their craft. And assuredly he would have carried 
out this scheme, if time enough had been at his 
disposal, or if the special purpose of his visit to 
Carrara had permitted. I one day heard him lament 
bitterly that he had not done so. Well, then, after 
quarrying and selecting the blocks which he deemed 
sufficient, he had them brought to the sea, and left 
a man of his to ship them off. He returned to 


Rome, and having stopped some days in Florence 
VOL. I. I 


130 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


on the way, when he arrived there, he found that 
part of the marble had already reached the Ripa.’ 
There he had them disembarked, and carried to the 
Piazza of S. Peter's behind S. Caterina, where he 
kept his lodging, close to the corridor connecting 
the Palace with the Castle of S. Angelo. The 
quantity of stone was enormous, so that, when it 
was all spread out upon the square, it stirred amaze- 
ment in the minds of most folk, but joy in the 
Pope’s. Julius indeed began to heap favours upon 
Michelangelo; for when he had begun to work, the 
Pope used frequently to betake himself to his house, 
conversing there with him about the tomb, and 
about other works which he proposed to carry out 
in concert with one of his brothers.” In order to 
arrive more conveniently at Michelangelo’s lodg- 
ings, he had a drawbridge thrown across from the 
corridor, by which he might gain privy access.” 

The date of Michelangelo’s return to Rome is 
fixed approximately by a contract signed at Carrara 
between him and two shipowners of Lavagna. This 
deed is dated November 12, 1505. It shows that 
thirty-four cartloads of marble were then ready for 
shipment, together with two figures weighing fifteen 
cartloads more. We have a right to assume that 
Michelangelo left Carrara soon after completing 


1 That is, the Tiber shore below the Aventine, The right bank is 
still called Porto di Ripa, and the left Marmorata. 

Probably Giovanni, Prefect of Rome, and founder of the Della Rovere 
dynasty at Urbino. 


._ _ oor 


FIRST PLAN FOR THE TOMB. 131 


this transaction. Allowing, then, for the journey 
and the halt at Florence, he probably reached Rome 
in the last week of that month.’ 


ibule 


The first act in the tragedy of the sepulchre had 
now begun, and Michelangelo was embarked upon 
one of the mightiest undertakings which a sovereign 
of the stamp of Julius ever intrusted to a sculptor 
of his titanic energy. In order to form a concep- 
tion of the magnitude of the enterprise, I am forced 
to enter into a discussion regarding the real nature 
of the monument. ‘This offers innumerable diffi- 
culties, for we only possess imperfect notices regard- 
ing the original design, and two doubtful drawings 
belonging to an uncertain period. Still it is im- 
possible to understand those changes in the Basilica 
of S. Peter’s which were occasioned by the project 
of Julius, or to comprehend the immense annoyances 
to which the tomb exposed Michelangelo, without 
erappling with its details. Condivi’s text must 
serve for guide. ‘This, in fact, is the sole source 
of any positive value. He describes the tomb, as 
he believed it to have been first planned, in the 
following paragraph :’— 

“To give some notion of the monument, I will 


1 See Vasari, xii. p. 346. 2 Condivi, p. 26. 


132 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


say that it was intended to have four faces: two of 
eighteen cubits, serving for the sides, and two of 
twelve for the ends, so that the whole formed one 
great square and a half.’ Surrounding it externally 
were niches to be filled with statues, and between 
each pair of niches stood terminal figures, to the 
front of which were attached on certain consoles pro- 
jecting from the wall another set of statues bound 
like prisoners. ‘These represented the Liberal Arts, 
and likewise Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, each 
with characteristic emblems, rendering their identi- 
fication easy. The intention was to show that all 
the talents had been taken captive by death, together 
with Pope Julius, since never would they find 
another patron to cherish and encourage them as 
he had done. Above these figures ran a cornice, 
giving unity to the whole work. Upon the flat 
surface formed by this cornice were to be four large 
statues, one of which, that is, the Moses, now exists 
at S. Pietro ad Vincula. And so, arriving at the 
summit, the tomb ended in a level space, whereon 
were two angels who supported a sarcophagus. 
One of them appeared to smile, rejoicing that the 
soul of the Pope had been received among the 
blessed spirits; the other seemed to weep, as sorrow- 
ing that the world had been robbed of such a man.” 
From one of the ends, that is, by the one which was 


1 According to Heath Wilson, 34} feet English by 23 (p. 74). 
* Vasari speaks of Heaven rejoicing, and Cybele, the goddess of earth, 
lamenting, Vol. xii. p. 181. 


CONDIVYS AND VASARIS STATEMENTS. — 133 


at the head of the monument, access was given to. 
a little chamber like a chapel, enclosed within the 
monument, in the midst of which was a marble 
chest, wherein the corpse of the Pope was meant 
to be deposited. The whole would have been 
executed with stupendous finish. In short, the 
sepulchre included more than forty statues, not 
counting the histories in half-reliefs, made of bronze, 
all of them pertinent to the general scheme and 
representative of the mighty Pontiff’s actions.” 

Vasari’s account differs in some minor details 
from Condivi’s, but it is of no authoritative value. 
Not having appeared in the edition of 1550, we may 
regard it as a rechauffée of Condivi, with the usual 
sauce provided by the Aretine’s imagination. The 
only addition I can discover which throws light 
upon Condivi’s narrative is that the statues in the 
niches were meant to represent provinces conquered 
by Julius. This is important, because it leads us to 
conjecture that Vasari knew a drawing now pre- 
served in the Uffizi, and sought, by its means, to 
add something to his predecessor's description. The 
drawing will occupy our attention shortly; but it 
may here be remarked that in 1505, the date of the 
first project, Julius was only entering upon his con- 
quests. It would have been a gross act of flattery 
on the part of the sculptor, a flying in the face 
of Nemesis on the part of his patron, to design a 
sepulchre anticipating length of life and luck sufhi- 
cient for these triumphs. 


134 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


What then Condivi tells us about the first scheme 
is, that it was intended to stand isolated in the 
tribune of S. Peter’s ; that it formed a rectangle of 
a square and half a square; that the podium was 
adorned with statues in niches flanked by projecting 
dadoes supporting captive arts, ten in number; that 
at each corner of the platform above the podium 
a seated statue was placed, one of which we may 
safely identify with the Moses; and that above this, 
surmounting the whole monument by tiers, arose a 
second mass, culminating in a sarcophagus supported 
by two angels. He further adds that the tomb was 
entered at its extreme end by a door, which led to 
a little chamber where lay the body of the Pope, 
and that bronze bas-reliefs formed a prominent 
feature of the total scheme. He reckons that more 
than forty statues would have been required to com- 
plete the whole design, although he has only men- 
tioned twenty-two of the most prominent.? 

More than this we do not know about the first 
project. We have no contracts and no sketches 
that can be referred to the date 1505. Much con- 
fusion has been introduced into the matter under 
consideration by the attempt to reconcile Condivi’s 
description with the drawing I have just alluded 
to. Heath Wilson even used that drawing to im- 
pugn Condivi’s accuracy with regard to the number 
of the captives and the seated figures on the plat: 


* On the calculation of ten captives on consoles, six in niches, four 
seated figures on the platform, and two angels, 


DEVELOPMENT OF THE PLAN. 135 


form. The drawing in question, as we shall pre- 
sently see, is of great importance for the subsequent 
history of the monument; and I believe that it to 
some extent preserves the general aspect which the 
tomb, as first designed, was intended to present. 
Two points about it, however, prevent our taking it 
as a true guide to Michelangelo’s original concep- 
tion. One is that it is clearly only part of a larger 
scheme of composition. ‘The other is that it shows 
a sarcophagus, not supported by angels, but posed 
upon the platform. Moreover, it corresponds to the 
declaration appended in 1513 by Michelangelo to 
the first extant document we possess about the 
tomb. 

Julius died in February 1513, leaving, it is said, 
to his executors directions that his sepulchre should 
not be carried out upon the first colossal plan.’ If 
he did so, they seem at the beginning of their trust 
to have disregarded his intentions. Michelangelo 
expressly states in one of his letters that the Car- 
dinal of Agen wished to proceed with the tomb, 
but on a larger scale? A deed dated May 6, 1513, 
was signed, at the end of which Michelangelo speci- 
fied the details of the new design. It differed from 
the former in many important respects, but most of 
all in the fact that now the structure was to be 

1 Two of the executors—Lorenzo Pucci, afterwards Cardinal of Santi- 
quattro, and Cardinal Leonardo Grosso della Rovere, Bishop of Agen, 
commonly called Aginensis—were specially commissioned to see the 


tomb finished. 
2 Lettere, No. ccclxxxiii., to Fattucci. 


136 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


attached to the wall of the church. I cannot do 
better than translate Michelangelo’s specifications.! 
They run as follows: “Let it be known to all 
men that I, Michelangelo,’ sculptor of Florence, 
undertake to execute the sepulchre of Pope Julius 
in marble, on the commission of the Cardinal of 
Agens and the Datary (Pucci), who, after his death, 
have been appointed to complete this work, for the 
sum of 16,500 golden ducats of the Camera; and 
the composition of the said sepulchre is to be in 
the form ensuing: A rectangle visible from three 
of its sides, the fourth of which is attached to the 
wall and cannot be seen. The front face, that is, 
the head of this rectangle, shall be twenty palms 
in breadth and fourteen in height, the other two, 
running up against the wall, shall be thirty-five 
palms long and likewise fourteen palms in height.? 
Kach of these three sides shall contain two taber- 
nacles, resting on a basement which shall run round 
the said space, and shall be adorned with pilasters, 
architrave, frieze, and cornice, as appears in the little 
wooden model. In each of the said six tabernacles 
will be placed two figures about one palm taller 
than life (¢.e. 62 feet), twelve in all; and in front 
of each pilaster which flanks a tabernacle shall 
stand a figure of similar size, twelve in all. On the 


1 Lettere, Contratto xi. p. 636. 

2 The Italian palmo is said to be 9 inches. This makes the dimen- 
sions work out as follows: 15 feet by 26 feet 3 inches, height 10 feet 
5 inches, 


CONTRACT OF 1513. 137 


platform above the said rectangular structure stands 
a sarcophagus with four feet, as may be seen in the 
model, upon which will be Pope Julius sustained 
by two angels at his head, with two at his feet; 
making five figures on the sarcophagus, all larger 
than life, that is, about twice the size.’ Round 
about the said sarcophagus will be placed six dadoes 
or pedestals, on which six figures of the same di- 
mensions will sit. Furthermore, from the platform, 
where it joins the wall, springs a little chapel about 
thirty-five palms high (26 feet 3 inches), which shall 
contain five figures larger than all the rest, as being 
farther from the eye. Moreover, there shall be three 
histories, either of bronze or of marble, as may 
please the said executors, introduced on each face 
of the tomb between one tabernacle and another.” 
All this Michelangelo undertook to execute in seven 
years for the stipulated sum. 

The new project involved thirty-eight colossal 
statues ; and, fortunately for our understanding of 
it, we may be said with almost absolute certainty 
to possess a drawing intended to represent it. Part 
of this is a pen-and-ink sketch at the Uffizi, which 
has frequently been published, and part is a sketch 
in the Berlin Collection. These have been put 
together by Professor Middleton of Cambridge, who 


1 The dimensions here specified seem quite extraordinary. The 
podium is only 10 feet 6 inches high ; but the figures on its faces are 
to be 6 feet 9 inches ; those upon its surface to be about 11 feet 8 inches 
high ; and those upon the chapel still larger. 


138 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


has also made out a key-plan of the tomb. With 
regard to its proportions and dimensions as com- 
pared with Michelangelo’s specification, there re- 
main some difficulties, with which I cannot see that 
Professor Middleton has grappled.’ It is perhaps 
not improbable, as Heath Wilson suggested, that 
the drawing had been thrown off as a picturesque 
forecast of the monument without attention to scale. 
Anyhow, there is no doubt that in this sketch, so 
happily restored by Professor Middleton’s sagacity 
and tact, we are brought close to Michelangelo's 
conception of the colossal work he never was 
allowed to execute. It not only answers to the 
description translated above from the sculptor’s own 
appendix to the contract, but it also throws light 
upon the original plan of the tomb designed for the 
tribune of S. Peter’s. The basement of the podium 
has been preserved, we may assume, in its more 
salient features. There are the niches spoken of 
by Condivi, with Vasari’s conquered provinces pros- 
trate at the feet of winged Victories. These are 
flanked by the terminal figures, against which, upon 
projecting consoles, stand the bound captives. At 
the right hand facing us, upon the upper platform, 
is seated Moses, with a different action of the hands, 
it is true, from that which Michelangelo finally 

1 See Heath Wilson, pp. 196, 197, for a statement of these discre- 
pancies and a criticism of the specification. Professor Middleton 
regards the drawings he has so ably brought together as only forming 


one of many sketches furnished by Michelangelo “after the death of 
Pope Julius.” 





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SECOND CONTRACT OF 1516. 139 


adopted. Near him is a female figure, and the two 
figures grouped upon the left angle seem to be both 
female. To some extent these statues bear out 
Vasari’s tradition that the platform in the first design 
was meant to sustain figures of the contemplative and 
active life of the soul—Dante’s Leah and Rachel. 

This great scheme was never carried out. ‘The 
fragments which may be safely assigned to it are 
the Moses at S. Pietro in Vincoli and the two bound 
captives of the Louvre; the Madonna and Child, 
Leah and Rachel, and two seated statues also at 
S. Pietro in Vincoli, belong to the plan, though 
these have undergone considerable alterations. Some 
other scattered fragments of the sculptors work 
may possibly be connected with its execution. Four 
male figures roughly hewn, which are now wrought 
into the rock-work of a grotto in the Boboli Gar- 
dens, together with the young athlete trampling 
on a prostrate old man (called the Victory) and the 
Adonis of the Museo Nazionale at Florence, have 
all been ascribed to the sepulchre of Julius in one 
or other of its stages. But these attributes are 
doubtful, and will be criticised in their proper place 
and time.! Suffice it now to say that Vasari reports, 
beside the Moses, Victory, and two Captives at the 
Louvre, eight figures for the tomb blocked out by 
Michelangelo at Rome, and five blocked out at 
Florence. 


1 Discrepancies in the scale and dimensions of these several statues 
render the whole question very puzzling, 


140 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Continuing the history of this tragic undertaking, 
we come to the year 1516. On the 8th of July 
in that year, Michelangelo signed a new contract, 
whereby the previous deed of 1513 was annulled.’ 
Both of the executors were alive and parties to this 
second agreement.” ‘‘ A model was made, the width 
of which is stated at twenty-one feet, after the 
monument had been already sculptured of a width 
of almost twenty-three feet. The architectural design 
was adhered to with the same pedestals and niches 
and the same crowning cornice of the first story. 
There were to be six statues in front, but the 
conquered provinces were now dispensed with. 
There was also to be one niche only on each flank, 
so that the projection of the monument from the 
wall was reduced more than half, and there were 
to be only twelve statues beneath the cornice and 
one relief, instead of twenty-four statues and three 
reliefs. On the summit of this basement a shrine 
was to be erected, within which was placed the effigy 
of the Pontiff on his sarcophagus, with two heavenly 
guardians. ‘The whole of the statues described in 
this third contract amount to nineteen.” Heath 
Wilson observes, with much propriety, that the 
most singular fact about these successive contracts 
is the departure from certain fixed proportions both 
of the architectural parts and the statues, involving 
a serious loss of outlay and of work. Thus the two 


1 Lettere, Contratto xvi. pp. 644-651. 
* I quote part of Heath Wilson’s description, pp. 222, 223. 


3 
, 
: 
| 
5 





THIRD CONTRACT OF 1532. 141 


Captives of the Louvre became useless, and, as we 
know, they were given away to Ruberto Strozzi in 
a moment of generosity by the sculptor." The 
sitting figures detailed in the deed of 1516 are 
shorter than the Moses by one foot. The standing 
figures, now at S. Pietro in Vincoli, correspond to 
the specifications. What makes the matter still 
more singular is, that after signing the contract 
under date July 8, 1516, Michelangelo in November 
of the same year ordered blocks of marble from 
Carrara with measurements corresponding to the 
specifications of the deed of 1513.” 

The miserable tragedy of the sepulchre dragged 
on for another sixteen years. During this period 
the executors of Julius passed away, and the 
Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere replaced them. 
He complained that Michelangelo neglected the 
tomb, which was true, although the fault lay not 
with the sculptor, but with the Popes, his task- 
masters. Legal proceedings were instituted to re- 
cover a large sum of money, which, it was alleged, 
had been disbursed without due work delivered by 
the master. Michelangelo had recourse to Clement 
VII., who, being anxious to monopolise his labour, 
undertook to arrange matters with the Duke. On 
the 29th of April 1532 a third and solemn con- 

1 Jn a petition addressed to Paul III. Michelangelo gives the reason 
why these statues had to be abandoned, owing to a change of scale in 
the tomb. Lettere, No. cdxxxiil, 


2 Contract with Francesco Pelliccia, November 1, 1516; Vasari, xii, 
Pp. 352. 


142 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


tract was signed at Rome in presence of the Pope, 
witnessed by a number of illustrious personages.’ 
This third contract involved a fourth design for 
the tomb, which Michelangelo undertook to furnish, 
and at the same time to execute six statues with his 
own hand. On this occasion the notion of erect- 
ing it in S. Peter's was finally abandoned. The 
choice lay between two other Roman churches, 
that of S. Maria del Popolo, where monuments to 
several members of the Della Rovere family existed, 
and that of S. Pietro in Vincoli, from which Julius 
II. had taken his cardinal’s title. Michelangelo 
decided for the latter, on account of its better 
lighting. ‘The six statues promised by Michelangelo 
are stated in the contract to be “begun and not 
completed, extant at the present date in Rome or 
in Florence.” Which of the several statues blocked 
out for the monument were to be chosen is not 
stated; and as there are no specifications in the 
document, we cannot identify them with exactness. 
At any rate, the Moses must have been one; and 
it is possible that the Leah and Rachel, Madonna, 


and two seated statues, now at 8S. Pietro, were the 


other five. 

It might have been thought that at last the 
tragedy had dragged on to its conclusion. But 
no; there was a fifth act, a fourth contract, a fifth 
design. Paul III. succeeded to Clement VII., and, 
having seen the Moses in Michelangelo’s workshop, 

1 Lettere, Contratto lv. pp. 702-706. 


; 

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FOURTH CONTRACT OF 1542. 143 


declared that this one statue was enough for the 
deceased Pope’s tomb. The Duke Francesco Maria 
della Rovere died in 1538, and was succeeded by his 
son, Guidobaldo II. The new Duke’s wife was a 
eranddaughter of Paul III., and this may have made 
him amenable to the Pope’s influence. At all events, 
upon the 20th of August 1542 a final contract was 
signed, stating that Michelangelo had been pre- 
vented “by just and legitimate impediments from 
carrying out” his engagement under date April 29, 
1532, releasing him from the terms of the third 
deed, and establishing new conditions." The Moses, 
finished by the hand of Michelangelo, takes the 
central place in this new monument. Five other 
statues are specified: “to wit, a Madonna with the 
child in her arms, which is already finished; a Sibyl, 
a Prophet, an Active Life and a Contemplative Life, 
blocked out and nearly completed by the said 
Michelangelo.” These four were given to Raffaello 
da Montelupo to finish. ‘The reclining portrait- 
statue of Julius, which was carved by Maso del 
Bosco, is not even mentioned in this contract. But 
-a deed between the Duke’s representative and the 
craftsmen Montelupo and Urbino exists, in which 
the latter undertakes to see that Michelangelo shall 
retouch the Pope’s face.’ 


1 Lettere, Contratto Ixiii. p. 715. See also the contracts with 
Raffaello da Montelupo, Giovanni de’ Marchesi, and Francesco l’Urbino, 
Nos. lix., lx., lxi., lxiv., all of which relate to the tomb. 

2 Lettere, Contratto Ixiv. p. 718. 


144 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Thus ended the tragedy of the tomb of Pope 
Julius II. It is supposed to have been finally com- 
pleted in 1545, and was set up where it still remains 
uninjured at S. Pietro in Vincoli.’ 


IV. 


I judged it needful to anticipate the course of 
events by giving this brief history of a work begun 
in 1505, and carried on with so many hindrances 
and alterations through forty years of Michelangelo’s 
life. We shall often have to return to it, since the 
matter cannot be lightly dismissed. The tomb of 
Julius empoisoned Michelangelo's manhood, ham- 
pered his energy, and brought but small if any profit 
to his purse. In one way or another it is always 
cropping up, and may be said to vex his biographers 
and the students of his life as much as it annoyed 
himself. We may now return to those early days in 
Rome, when the project had still a fascination both 
for the sculptor and his patron. 

The old Basilica of S. Peter on the Vatican is 
said to have been built during the reign of Constan- 
tine, and to have been consecrated in 324 4.D. It 


1 See Lettere, No. cdxliii., to the bankers Salvestro da Montauto 
and Co., on January 25, 1545, ordering them to make the last payment 
to Raffaello da Montelupo. It is indorsed by the Duke of Urbino’s 
envoy, Hieronimo Tiranno. Another letter of the same year to the 
game bankers, No. cdlii., shows that Montelupo’s work was finished. 


THE OLD BASILICA OF 5S.’ PETER’S. 145 


was one of the largest of those Roman buildings, 
measuring 435 feet in length from the great door 
to the end of the tribune. A spacious open square 
or atrium, surrounded by a cloister-portico, gave 
access to the church. ‘This, in the Middle Ages, 
gained the name of the Paradiso. A kind of taber- 
nacle, in the centre of the square, protected the great 
bronze fir-cone, which was formerly supposed to have 
crowned the summit of Hadrian’s Mausoleum, the 
Castle of S. Angelo.’ Dante, who saw it in the 
courtyard of S. Peter’s, used it as a standard for 
his giant Nimrod. He says— 

La faccia sua mi parea lunga e grossa, 

Come la pina di San Pietro a Roma. 


—(Inf. xxxi. 58.) 

This mother-church of Western Christendom was 
adorned inside and out with mosaics in the style 
of those which may still be seen at Ravenna. 
Above the lofty row of columns which flanked the 
central aisle ran processions of saints and sacred 
histories. They led the eye onward to what was 
called the Arch of Triumph, separating this portion 
of the building from the transept and the tribune. 
The concave roof of the tribune itself was decorated 
with a colossal Christ, enthroned between S. Peter 
and S. Paul, surveying the vast spaces of his house: 
the lord and master, before whom pilgrims from all 
parts of Europe came to pay tribute and to perform 
acts of homage. ‘The columns were of precious 


1 Tt was really in antique, as in medieval, times a fountain. 
VOL. 1. K 


146 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


marbles, stripped from Pagan palaces and temples; 
and the roof was tiled with plates of gilded bronze, 
torn in the age of Heraclius from the shrine of 
Venus and of Roma on the Sacred Way. 

During the eleven centuries which elapsed between 
its consecration and the decree for its destruction, 
S. Peter’s had been gradually enriched with a series 
of monuments, inscriptions, statues, frescoes, upon 
which were written the annals of successive ages of 
the Church. Giotto worked there under Benedict 
II. in 1340. Pope after Pope was buried there. 
In the early period of Renaissance sculpture, Mino 
da Fiesole, Pollaiuolo, and Filarete added works 
in bronze and marble, which blent the grace of 
Florentine religious tradition with quaint neo-pagan 
mythologies. These treasures, priceless for the 
historian, the antiquary, and the artist, were now 
going to be ruthlessly swept away at a pontiff’s 
bidding, in order to make room for his haughty 
and self-laudatory monument. Whatever may have 
been the artistic merits of Michelangelo’s original 
conception for the tomb, the spirit was in no sense 
Christian. Those rows of captive Arts and Sciences, 
those Victories exulting over prostrate cities, those 
allegorical colossi symbolising the mundane virtues 
of a mighty ruler’s character, crowned by the portrait 
of the Pope, over whom Heaven rejoiced while 
Cybele deplored his loss—all this pomp of power 
and parade of ingenuity harmonised but little with 
the humility of a contrite soul returning to its 


DECREE TO REBUILD THE CHURCH. 147 


Maker and its Judge. The new temple, destined 
to supersede the old basilica, embodied an aspect 
of Latin Christianity which had very little indeed 
in common with the piety of the primitive Church. 
S. Peter’s, as we see it now, represents the majesty 
of Papal Rome, the spirit of a secular monarchy in 
the hands of priests; it is the visible symbol of that 
schism between the Teutonic and the Latin portions 
of the Western Church which broke out soon after 
its foundation, and became irreconcilable before the 
cross was placed upon its cupola. It seemed as 
though in sweeping away the venerable traditions 
of eleven hundred years, and replacing Rome’s time- 
honoured Mother-Church with an edifice bearing the 
brand-new stamp of hybrid neo-pagan architecture, 
the Popes had wished to signalise that rupture with 
the past and that atrophy of real religious life 
which marked the counter-reformation. 

Julius II. has been severely blamed for planning 
the entire reconstruction of his cathedral. It must, 
however, be urged in his defence that the structure 
had already, in 1447, been pronounced insecure. 
Nicholas V. ordered his architects, Bernardo Rossel- 
lini and Leo Battista Alberti, to prepare plans for 
its restoration. It is, of course, impossible for us 
to say for certain whether the ancient fabric could 
have been preserved, or whether its dilapidations 
had gone so far as to involve destruction. Bearing 
in mind the recklessness of the Renaissance and 
the passion which the Popes had for engaging in 


148 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


colossal undertakings, one is inclined to suspect 
that the unsound state of the building was made 
a pretext for beginning a work which flattered the 
architectural tastes of Nicholas, but was not abso- 
lutely necessary. However this may have been, foun- 
dations for a new tribune were laid outside the old 
apse, and the wall rose some feet above the ground 
before the Pope’s death. Paul IJ. carried on the 
building; but during the pontificates of Sixtus, 
Innocent, and Alexander it seems to have been 
neglected. Meanwhile nothing had been done to 
injure the original basilica; and when Julius an- 
nounced his intention of levelling it to the ground, 
his cardinals and bishops entreated him to refrain 
from an act so sacrilegious. ‘The Pope was not a 
man to take advice or make concessions. Accord- 
ingly, turning a deaf ear to these entreaties, he 
had plans prepared by Giuliano da San Gallo and 
Bramante. ‘Those eventually chosen were furnished 
by Bramante; and San Gallo, who had hitherto 
enjoyed the fullest confidence of Julius, is said to 
have left Rome in disgust. For reasons which will 
afterwards appear, he could not have done so before 
the summer months of 1506." 

It is not yet the proper time to discuss the build- 
ing of S. Peter’s. Still, with regard to Bramante’s 
plan, this much may here be said. It was designed 
in the form of a Greek cross, surmounted with a 


1 From a letter of Pietro Rosselli, quoted by Gotti, i. 46, we gather 
that San Gallo may have left Rome as early as May ro. 


BRAMANTE’S DESIGN. 149 


huge circular dome and flanked by two towers. 
Bramante used to boast that he meant to raise the 
Pantheon in the air; and the plan, as preserved 
for us by Serlio, shows that the cupola would have 
been constructed after that type. Competent judges, 
however, declare that insuperable difficulties must 
have arisen in carrying out this design, while the 
piers constructed by Bramante were found in 
effect to be wholly insufficient for their purpose. 
For the esthetic beauty and the commodiousness 
of his building we have the strongest evidence in 
a letter written by Michelangelo, who was by no 
means a partial witness.’ “It cannot be denied,” 
he says, “that Bramante’s talent as an architect 
was equal to that of any one from the times of the 
ancients until now. He laid the first plan of S. 
Peter’s, not confused, but clear and simple, full of 
light and detached from surrounding buildings, 
so that it interfered with no part of the palace. 
It was considered a very fine design, and indeed 
any one can see with his own eyes now that it is 
so. All the architects who departed from Bra- 
mante’s scheme, as did Antonio da San Gallo, have 
departed from the truth.” Though Michelangelo 
gave this unstinted praise to Bramante’s genius as 
a builder, he blamed him severely both for his want 
of honesty as a man, and also for his vandalism in 
dealing with the venerable church he had to replace. 
‘*‘Bramante,” says Condivi, “was addicted, as every- 


1 Lettere, No. cdlxxiv. 


150 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


body knows, to every kind of pleasure. He spent 
enormously, and, though the pension granted him 
by the Pope was large, he found it insufficient for 
his needs. Accordingly he made profit out of the 
works committed to his charge, erecting the walls 
of poor material, and without regard for the sub- 
stantial and enduring qualities which fabrics on so 
huge a scale demanded. This is apparent in the 
buildings at S. Peter’s, the Corridore of the Belve- 
dere, the Convent of San Pietro ad Vincula, and 
other of his edifices, which have had to be 
strengthened and propped up with buttresses and 
similar supports in order to prevent them tumbling 
down.” Bramante, during his residence in Lom- 
bardy, developed a method of erecting piers with 
rubble enclosed by hewn stone or plaster-covered 
brickwork. This enabled an unconscientious builder 
to furnish bulky architectural masses, which pre- 
sented a specious aspect of solidity and looked 
more costly than they really were. It had the 
additional merit of being easy and rapid in exe- 
cution. Bramante was thus able to gratify the 
whims and caprices of his impatient patron, who 
desired to see the works of art he ordered rise like 
the fabric of Aladdin’s lamp before his very eyes. 
Michelangelo is said to have exposed the architect's 
trickeries to the Pope ; what is more, he complained 
with just and bitter indignation of the wanton ruth- 
lessness with which Bramante set about his work 
of destruction. I will again quote Condivi here, 


Ne ne ae ee ae eee ae a ee 


FOUNDATIONS LAID IN 1506. 151 


for the passage seems to have been inspired by 
the great sculptor’s verbal reminiscences: ‘The 
worst was, that while he was pulling down the 
old 8. Peter’s, he dashed those marvellous antique 
columns to the ground, without paying the least 
attention, or caring at all when they were broken 
into fragments, although he might have lowered 
them gently and preserved their shafts intact. 
Michelangelo pointed out that it was an easy thing 
enough to erect piers by placing brick on brick, 
but that to fashion a column like one of these 
taxed all the resources of art.” 

On the 18th of April 1506, Julius performed the 
ceremony of laying the foundation-stone of the new 
S. Peter’s.1 The place chosen was the great sustain- 
ing pier of the dome, near which the altar of S. 
Veronica now stands. <A deep pit had been ex- 
cavated, into which the aged Pope descended fear- 
lessly, only shouting to the crowd above that they 
should stand back and not endanger the falling in 
of the earth above him. Coins and medals were 
duly deposited in a vase, over which a ponderous 
block of marble was lowered, while Julius, bare- 
headed, sprinkled the stone with holy water and 
gave the pontifical benediction. On the same day 
he wrote a letter to Henry VII. of England, inform- 
ing the King that “by the guidance of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ he had undertaken to restore 
the old basilica, which was perishing through age.” 

1 See Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Life of Raphael, vol. i. p. 381. 


Lee LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


V. 


The terms of cordial intimacy which subsisted 
between Julius and Michelangelo at the close of 
1505 were destined to be disturbed. The Pope 
intermitted his visits to the sculptor’s workshop, 
and began to take but little interest in the monu- 
ment. Condivi directly ascribes this coldness to 
the intrigues of Bramante, who whispered into the 
Pontiffs ear that it was ill-omened for a man to 
construct his own tomb in his lifetime. It is not 
at all improbable that he said something of the 
sort, and Bramante was certainly no good friend to 
Michelangelo. A manceuvring and managing indi- 
vidual, entirely unscrupulous in his choice of means, 
condescending to flattery and lies, he strove to stand 
as patron between the Pope and subordinate crafts- 
men. Michelangelo had come to Rome under San 
Gallo’s influence, and Bramante had just succeeded 
in winning the commission to rebuild S. Peter’s 
over his rival’s head. It was important for him to 
break up San Gallo’s party, among whom the sincere 
and uncompromising Michelangelo threatened to be 
very formidable. The jealousy which he felt for the 
man was envenomed by a fear lest he should speak 
the truth about his own dishonesty. To discredit 
Michelangelo with the Pope, and, if possible, to drive 
him out of Rome, was therefore Bramante’s interest : 


BRAMANTE AND BUONARROTI. 153 


more particularly as his own nephew, Raffaello da 
Urbino, had now made up his mind to join him 
there. We shall see that he succeeded in expelling 
both San Gallo and Buonarroti during the course of 
1506, and that in their absence he reigned, together 
with Raffaello, almost alone in the art-circles of the 
Eternal City. 

I see no reason, therefore, to discredit the story 
told by Condivi and Vasari regarding the Pope’s 
growing want of interest in his tomb. Michelangelo 
himself, writing from Rome in 1542, thirty-six years 
after these events, says that “all the dissensions 
between Pope Julius and me arose from the envy 
of Bramante and Raffaello da Urbino, and this was 
the cause of my not finishing the tomb in his life- 
time. They wanted toruin me. Raflaello indeed had 
good reason; for all he had of art he owed to me.” ’ 
But, while we are justified in attributing much to 
Bramante’s intrigues, it must be remembered that 
the Pope at this time was absorbed in his plans for 
conquering Bologna. Overwhelmed with business 
and anxious about money, he could not have had 
much leisure to converse with sculptors. 

Michelangelo was still in Rome at the end of 
January. On the 31st of that month he wrote to 
his father, complaining that the marbles did not 
arrive quickly enough, and that he had to keep 
Julius in good humour with promises.” At the same 
time he begged Lodovico to pack up all his drawings, 


1 Lettere, No. cdxxxv. 2 Lettere, No, lii 


154 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


and to send them, well secured against bad weather, 
by the hand of a carrier. It is obvious that he had 
no thoughts of leaving Rome, and that the Pope 
was still eager about the monument. Farly in the 
spring he assisted at the discovery of the Laocoon. 
Francesco, the son of Giuliano da San Gallo, 
describes how Michelangelo was almost always at 
his father’s house; and coming there one day, he 
went, at the architect’s invitation, down to the ruins 
of the Palace of Titus.) “We set off, all three 
together; I on my father’s shoulders. When we 
descended into the place where the statue lay, my 
father exclaimed at once, ‘That is the Laocoon, of 
which Pliny speaks.’ The opening was enlarged, so 
that it could be taken out; and after we had sufii- 
ciently admired it, we went home to breakfast.” 
Julius bought the marble for 500 crowns, and had 
it placed in the Belvedere of the Vatican. Scholars 
praised it in Latin lines of greater or lesser merit, 
Sadoleto writing even a fine poem;* and Michel- 
angelo is said, but without trustworthy authority, 
to have assisted in its restoration. 

This is the last glimpse we have of Michelangelo 
before his flight from Rome. Under what circum- 
stances he suddenly departed may be related in the 
words of a letter addressed by him to Giuliano da 


* Grimm, vol. i. p. 276. The piace where this antique marble was 
discovered was really the Therme of Titus. 

* Printed in Poemata Selecta Italorum, Oxonii, 1808 ; also in a note 
to Lessing’s Laokoon. 


SUDDEN FLIGHT FROM ROME. 155 


San Gallo in Rome upon the 2nd of May 1506, after 
his return to Florence.’ 

“ GruLiano,— Your letter informs me that the Pope 
was angry at my departure, as also that his Holiness is 
inclined to proceed with the works agreed upon be- 
tween us, and that I may return and not be anxious 
about anything. 

“ About my leaving Rome, it is a fact that on Holy 
Saturday I heard the Pope, in conversation with a 
jeweller at table and with the Master of Ceremo- 
nies, say that he did not mean to spend a farthing 
more on stones, small or great. This caused me 
no little astonishment. However, before I left his 
presence, I asked for part of the money needed to 
carry on the work. His Holiness told me to return 
on Monday. I did so, and on Tuesday, and on 
Wednesday, and on Thursday, as the Pope saw. 
At last, on Friday morning, I was sent away, or 
plainly turned out of doors. The man who did 
this said he knew me, but that such were his 
orders. 1, who had heard the Pope’s words on 
Saturday, and now perceived their result in deeds, 
was utterly cast down. This was not, however, 
quite the only reason of my departure ; there was 
something else, which I do not wish to com- 
municate; enough that it made me think that, if 
I stayed in Rome, that city would be my tomb 
before it was the Pope’s. And this was the cause 
of my sudden departure. 


1 Lettere, No. cccxliii. 


156 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


“Now you write to me at the Pope’s instance. 
So I beg you to read him this letter, and inform 
his Holiness that I am even more than ever dis- 
posed to carry out the work.” 

Further details may be added from subsequent 
letters of Michelangelo. Writing in January 1524 
to his friend Giovanni Francesco Fattucci, he says :? 
“When I had finished paying for the transport of 
these marbles, and all the money was spent, I 
furnished the house I had upon the Piazza di S. 
Pietro with beds and utensils at my own expense, 
trusting to the commission of the tomb, and sent 
for workmen from Florence, who are still] alive, 
and paid them in advance out of my own purse. 
Meanwhile Pope Julius changed his mind about the 
tomb, and would not have it made. Not knowing 
this, I applied to him for money, and was expelled 
from the chamber. Enraged at such an insult, I 
left Rome on the moment. The things with which 
my house was stocked went to the dogs. The 
marbles I had brought to Rome lay till the date 
of Leo’s creation on the Piazza, and both lots were 
injured and pillaged.” ° 

Again, a letter of October 1542, addressed to 
some prelate, contains further particulars. We 


1 Lettere, No. ccclxxxiii, 

7 In the abbozzo (ccclxxxiv): “ Finding myself engaged in great 
expenses, and seeing his Holiness indisposed to pay, I complained to 
him ; this annoyed him so much that he had me turned out of the 
antechamber. Upon which I became angry and left home suddenly.” 

3 Lettere, No. cdxxxv. 


DETAILS REGARDING THE FLIGHT. 157 


learn he was so short of money that he had to 
borrow about 200 ducats from his friend Baldassare 
Balducci at the bank of Jacopo Gallo. The episode 
at the Vatican and the flight to Poggibonsi are 
related thus :— 

“To continue my history of the tomb of Julius: 
I say that when he changed his mind about build- 
ing it in his lifetime, some ship-loads of marble 
came to the Ripa, which I had ordered a short 
while before from Carrara; and as I could not get 
money from the Pope to pay the freightage, I had 
to borrow 150 or 200 ducats from Baldassare 
Balducci, that is, from the bank of Jacopo Gallo. 
At the same time workmen came from Florence, 
some of whom are still alive; and I furnished the 
house which Julius gave me behind 8. Caterina 
with beds and other furniture for the men, and 
what was wanted for the work of the tomb. All 
this being done without money, I was greatly 
embarrassed. Accordingly, I urged the Pope with 
all my power to go forward with the business, 
and he had me turned away by a groom one morn- 
ing when I came to speak upon the matter. A 
Lucchese bishop, seeing this, said to the groom: 
‘Do you not know who that man ist’ The groom 
replied to me: ‘Excuse me, gentleman ; I have 
orders to do this.’ I went home, and wrote as 
follows to the Pope: ‘Most blessed Father, I 
have been turned out of the palace to-day by your 
orders; wherefore I give you notice that from this 


158 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


time forward, if you want me, you must look for 
me elsewhere than at Rome.’ I sent this letter 
to Messer Agostino, the steward, to give it to the 
Pope. Then I sent for Cosimo, a carpenter, who 
lived with me and looked after household matters, 
and a stone-heaver, who is still alive, and said to 
them: ‘Go for a Jew, and sell everything in the 
house, and come to Florence.’ I went, took the 
post, and travelled towards Florence. The Pope, 
when he had read my letter, sent five horsemen 
after me, who reached me at Poggibonsi about three 
hours after nightfall, and gave me a letter from 
the Pope to this effect: ‘When you have seen 
these present, come back at once to Rome, under 
penalty of our displeasure.’ The horsemen were 
anxious I should answer, in order to prove that 
they had overtaken me. I replied then to the 
Pope, that if he would perform the conditions he 
was under with regard to me, I would return; but 
otherwise he must not expect to have me again. 
Later on, while I was at Florence, Julius sent 
three briefs to the Signory. At last the latter sent 
for me and said: ‘We do not want to go to war 
with Pope Julius because of you. You must re- 
turn; and if you do so, we will write you letters of 
such authority that, should he do you harm, he will 
be doing it to this Signory.’ Accordingly 1 took 
the letters, and went back to the Pope, and what 
followed would be long to tell.” 

These passages from Michelangelo’s correspondence 


Eg en - 


MICHELANGELO’S NERVOUSNESS. 159 


confirm Condivi's narrative of the flight from Rome, 
showing that he had gathered his information from 
the sculptor’s lips. Condivi differs only in making 
Michelangelo send a verbal message, and not a written 
letter, to the Pope.’ ‘Enraged by this repulse, he ex- 
claimed to the groom: ‘Tell the Pope that if hence- 
forth he wants me, he must look for me elsewhere.’ ” 

It is worth observing that only the first of these 
letters, written shortly after the event, and in- 
tended for the Pope’s ear, contains a hint of 
Michelangelo’s dread of personal violence if he 
remained in Rome. His words seem to point at 
poison or the dagger. Cellini’s autobiography yields 
sufficient proof that such fears were not unjustified 
by practical experience; and Bramante, though he 
preferred to work by treachery of tongue, may have 
commanded the services of assassins, womint arditi 
e facinorosi, as they were somewhat euphemistically 
called. At any rate, it is clear that Michelangelo’s 
precipitate departure and vehement refusal to return 
were occasioned by more pungent motives than the 
Pope’s frigidity. This has to be noticed, because 
we learn from several incidents of the same kind 
in the master’s life that he was constitutionally 
subject to sudden fancies and fears of imminent 
danger to his person from an enemy. He had 
already quitted Bologna in haste (p. 48 above) from 
dread of assassination or maltreatment at the hands 
of native sculptors. 

1 Condivi, p. 29. 


160 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


VI. 


The negotiations which passed between the Pope 
and the Signory of Florence about what may be 
called the extradition of Michelangelo form a 
curious episode in his biography, throwing into 
powerful relief the importance he had already 
acquired among the princes of Italy. I propose 
to leave these for the commencement of my next 
chapter, and to conclude the present with an ac- 
count of his occupations during the summer months 
at Florence. 

Signor Gotti says that he passed three months 
away from Julius in his native city.' Considering 
that he arrived before the end of April, and reached 
Bologna at the end of November 1506, we have the 
right to estimate this residence at about seven 
months.” A letter written to him from Rome on 
the 4th of August shows that he had not then left 
Florence upon any intermediate journey of import- 
ance.” Therefore there is every reason to suppose 


1 Gotti, i. 47. He follows Vasari. 

2 In a draft for his famous letter to Fattucci (No. ecelxxxiv.), Michel- 
angelo himself declares that he “remained about seven or eight months 
in hiding, as it were, because of his fear of the Pope.” 

8 Gotti, ii. 51. Curiously enough, he seems to have gone a second 
time to Carrara, about May 20, to purchase marbles for the tomb of 
Julius, See Vasari, xii. p. 347. I am not sure that he may not have 
gone there at Soderini’s orders to order the famous block of marble 
for the Cacus. 


FATE OF LIONARDO’S FRESCO. 161 


that he enjoyed a period of half a year of leisure, 
which he devoted to finishing his Cartoon for the 
Battle of Pisa. 

It had been commenced, as we have seen, in a 
workshop at the Spedale dei Tintori. When he 
went to Bologna in the autumn, it was left, exposed 
presumably to public view, in the Sala del Papa at 
S. Maria Novella." It had therefore been com- 
pleted; but it does not appear that Michelangelo 
had commenced his fresco in the Sala del Gran 
Consiglio. 

Lionardo began to paint his Battle of the Standard 
in March 1505. The work advanced rapidly; but 
the method he adopted, which consisted in applying 
oil colours to a fat composition laid thickly on the 
wall, caused the ruin of his picture. He is said to 
have wished to reproduce the encaustic process of 
the ancients, and lighted fires to harden the surface 
of the fresco.” This melted the wax in the lower 
portions of the paste, and made the colours run. 
At any rate, no traces of the painting now remain 
in the Sala del Gran Consiglio, the walls of which 
are covered by the mechanical and frigid brush-work 
of Vasari. It has even been suggested that Vasari 


1 Condivi is our authority for these facts. 

2 The whole could not have been completed. Vasari says that 
Lionardo left off in disgust; and a letter from Soderini to his agent 
at Milan, October 9, 1506, complains that “Lionardo acted ill toward 
the Republic, since he took a large sum of money, and made but a small 
beginning of a great work he was engaged to do.” Gaye, ii. 87. Professor 
Middleton reminds me that in his experiment at encaustic painting 
Lionardo followed the directions given by Vitruvius (vii. 9. 3). 

VOL, I, L 


162 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


knew more about the disappearance of his prede- 
cessor’s masterpiece than he has chosen to relate.’ 
Lionardo’s Cartoon has also disappeared, and we 
know the Battle of Anghiari only by Edelinck’s en- 
eraving from a drawing of Rubens, and by some 
doubtful sketches.’ 

The same fate was in store for Michelangelo’s 
Cartoon. All that remains to us of that great work 
is the chiaroscuro transcript at Holkham, a sketch 
for the whole composition in the Albertina Gallery 
at Vienna, which differs in some important details 
from the Holkham group, several interesting pen-and- 
chalk drawings by Michelangelo’s own hand, also in 
the Albertina Collection, and a line-engraving by 
Marcantonio Raimondi, commonly known as ‘‘ Les 
Grimpeurs.’’* 

We do not know at what exact time Michelangelo 
finished his Cartoon in 1506.* He left it, says 

1 Heath Wilson, p. 70. 

2 Crowe and Cavalcaselle attribute some pieces in Raphael’s sketch- 
book to transcripts made at Florence from Lionardo’s fresco. Life 
of Raphael, 1. 274. 

3 The whole subject is well treated by M. Thausing, Michelangelo's 
Entwurf. Leipzig: Seemann, 1878. 

4 Nearly all the critics who have entered into the details of this 
question, Milanesi (in Vasari), Gotti, Crowe and Cavalcaselle (in Life of 
Raphael), Miinz (1/Ciuvre et la Vie), give the date August 1505. They 
do this on the strength of two entries in Gaye, vol. ii. p. 93. These are 
minutes of payments, one on February 28, 1505, to Michelangelo for 
work done ; the other, on August 30, 1505, to a ropemaker for setting up 
the Cartoon. Something is wrong here. Even supposing that Michel- 
angelo did not leave Florence for Rome as early as January 1505, 


he was almost certainly at Carrara in August 1505. The only way 
to reconcile these dates is to suppose that Michelangelo was paid in 


FATE OF MICHELANGELO’S CARTOON. 163 


Condivi, in the Sala del Papa. Afterwards it must 
have been transferred to the Sala del Gran Consiglio ; 
for Albertini, in his Memoriale, or Guide-Book to 
Florence, printed in 1510, speaks of both “the 
works of Lionardo da Vinci and the designs of 
Michelangelo” as then existing in that hall. Vasari 
asserts that it was taken to the house of the Medici, 
and placed in the great upper hall, but gives no 
date. This may have taken place on the return of 
the princely family in 1512. Cellini confirms this 
view, since he declares that when he was copying 
the Cartoon, which could hardly have happened 
before 1513, the Battle of Pisa was at the Palace of 
the Medici, and the Battle of Anghiari at the Sala del 
Papa.! The way in which it finally disappeared is in- 
volved in some obscurity, owing to Vasari’s spite and 
mendacity. In the first, or 1550, edition of the ‘‘ Lives 


February 1505 for work done before he went to Rome, and that the Car- 
toon in its unfinished state was framed and hung during his absence 
in August 1505. It is quite clear, from Condivi, Vasari, and Soderini’s 
letter of November 27 (Gaye, ii. 92), that he was working on the Car- 
toon in 1506. In the letter to Fattucci (No. ceclxxxiii.) Michelangelo 
himself says that when he went to Rome the Cartoon was in progress ; 
he expected to be paid 3000 ducats, and thought the money was already 
half gained. Like so much of his work, he probably left it in a stage 
bordering upon completion. His subsequent labour in 1506 may have 
brought it to that unexampled finish which Vasari praises. 

1 Albertini, quoted by Milanesi, -Vas. vii. 33, note ; Vasari, xil. 179; 
Cellini, Vita, i. cap. 12. Albertini, I may observe, does not use the 
word cartone, but disegnt, Yet I think it probable that he meant the 
former, and that in 1510 the Cartoon was in the Sala del Gran Con- 
siglio, It appears from Michelangelo’s correspondence (Lettere, pp. 
84, 92, 95) that in the year 1508 it must have still been in the Sala 
del Papa. 


164 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


of the Painters,” he wrote as follows:! “Having 
become a regular object of study to artists, the Cartoon 
was carried to the house of the Medici, into the great 
upper hall; and this was the reason that it came 
with too little safeguard into the hands of those said 
artists: inasmuch as, during the illness of the Duke 
Giuliano, when no one attended to such matters, it 
was torn in pieces by them and scattered abroad, so 
that fragments may be found in many places, as is 
proved by those existing now in the house of Uberto 
Strozzi, a gentleman of Mantua, who holds them in 
great respect.” When Vasari published his second 
edition, in 1568, he repeated this story of the de- 
struction of the Cartoon, but with a very significant 
alteration.” Instead of saying “it was torn in pieces 
by them,” he now printed “it was torn in pieces, as 
hath been told elsewhere.” Now Bandinelli, Vasari’s 
mortal enemy, and the scapegoat for all the sins of 
his generation among artists, died in 1559, and 
Vasari felt that he might safely defame his memory. 
Accordingly he introduced a Life of Bandinelli into 
the second edition of his work, containing the 
following passage:* “ Baccio was in the habit of 
frequenting the place where the Cartoon stood more 
than any other artists, and had in his possession a 
false key; what follows happened at the time when 


+ T quote from a manuscript copy of this edition, and cannot therefore 
give the page. The illness of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, is probably 
the one which preceded his death in 1516. 

® Vasari, xii. p. 179. * Vasari, x. p. 296. 


VASARI AND BANDINELLI. 165 


Piero Soderini was deposed in 1512, and the Medici 
returned. Well, then, while the palace was in 
tumult and confusion through this revolution, Baccio 
went alone, and tore the Cartoon into a thousand 
fragments. Why he did so was not known; but 
some surmised that he wanted to keep certain 
pieces of it by him for his own use; some, that he 
wished to deprive young men of its advantages in 
study; some, that he was moved by affection for 
Lionardo da Vinci, who suffered much in reputation 
by this design ; some, perhaps with sharper intui- 
tion, believed that the hatred he bore to Michel- 
angelo inspired him to commit the act. The loss 
of the Cartoon to the city was no slight one, and 
Baccio deserved the blame he got, for everybody 
called him envious and spiteful.” This second ver- 
sion stands in glaring contradiction to the first, both 
as regards the date and the place where the Car- 
toon was destroyed. It does not, I think, deserve 
credence, for Cellini, who was a boy of twelve in 
1512, could hardly have drawn from it before that 
date; and if Bandinelli was so notorious for his 
malignant vandalism as Vasari asserts, it 1s most 
improbable that Cellini, while speaking of the 
Cartoon in connection with Torrigiano, should not 
have taken the opportunity to cast a stone at the 
man whom he detested more than any one in 
Florence. Moreover, if Bandinelli had wanted to 
destroy the Cartoon for any of the reasons above 
assigned to him, he would not have dispersed frag- 


166 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO 


ments to be treasured up with reverence. At the 
close of this tedious summary I ought to add that 
Condivi expressly states :* ‘I do not know by what 
ill-fortune it subsequently came to ruin.” He adds, 
however, that many of the pieces were found about 
in various places, and that all of them were pre- 
served like sacred objects. We have, then, every 
reason to believe that the story told in Vasari’s first 
edition is the literal truth. Copyists and engravers 
used their opportunity, when the palace of the 
Medici was thrown into disorder by the severe 
illness of the Duke of Nemours, to take away por- 
tions of Michelangelo’s Cartoon for their own use 
in 1516. 

Of the Cartoon and its great reputation Cellini 
gives us this account:’ ‘Michelangelo portrayed 
a number of foot-soldiers, who, the season being 
summer, had gone to bathe in the Arno. He drew 
them at the very moment the alarm is sounded, and 
the men all naked run to arms; so splendid is their 
action, that nothing survives of ancient or of modern © 
art which touches the same lofty point of excel- 
lence; and, as I have already said, the design of the 
great Lionardo was itself most admirably beautiful. 
These two Cartoons stood, one in the palace of the 
Medici, the other in the hall of the Pope. So long 
as they remained intact, they were the school of the 
world. Though the divine Michelangelo in later 


! Condivi, p. 31. 
2 Vita, lib. i, cap. 12, Englished by J. A. Symonds. 


CELEBRITY OF THE CARTOON. 167 


life finished that great chapel of Pope Julius (the 
Sistine), he never rose halfway to the same pitch 
of power; his genius never afterwards attained to 
the force of those first studies.” Allowing for some 
exaggeration due to enthusiasm for things enjoyed 
in early youth, this is a very remarkable statement. 
Cellini knew the frescoes of the Sistine well, yet 
he maintains that they were inferior in power and 
beauty to the Battle of Pisa. It seems hardly 
credible; but, if we believe it, the legend of Michel- 
angelo’s being unable to execute his own designs for 
the vault of that chapel falls to the ground. 


VIL. 


The great Cartoon has become less even than a 
memory, and so, perhaps, we ought to leave it in 
the limbo of things inchoate and unaccomplished. 
But this it was not, most emphatically. Decidedly 
it had its day, lived and sowed seeds for good or 
evil through its period of brief existence: so many 
painters of the grand style took their note from it; 
it did so much to introduce the last phase of Italian 
art, the phase of efflorescence, the phase deplored 
by critics steeped in medizval feeling. ‘To re- 
capture something of its potency from the descrip- 
tion of contemporaries is therefore our plain duty, 
and for this we must have recourse to Vasari’s text. 


168 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


He says:? ‘‘ Michelangelo filled his canvas with nude 
men, who, bathing at the time of summer heat in 
Arno, were suddenly called to arms, the enemy assail- 
ing them. ‘The soldiers swarmed up from the river 
to resume their clothes ; and here you could behold 
depicted by the master’s godlike hands one hurrying 
to clasp his limbs in steel and give assistance to his 
comrades, another buckling on the cuirass, and many 
seizing this or that weapon, with cavalry in squadrons 
giving the attack. Among the multitude of figures, 
there was an old man, who wore upon his head an 

ivy wreath for shade. Seated on the ground, in 
act to draw his hose up, he was hampered by the 
wetness of his legs; and while he heard the clamour 
of the soldiers, the cries, the rumbling of the drums, 
he pulled with all his might; all the muscles and 
sinews of his body were seen in strain; and what 
was more, the contortion of his mouth showed what 
agony of haste he suffered, and how his whole frame 
laboured to the toe-tips. Then there were drummers 
and men with flying garments, who ran stark 
naked toward the fray. Strange postures too: this 
fellow upright, that man kneeling, or bent down, 
or on the point of rising ; all in the air foreshortened 
with full conquest over every difficulty. In addi- 
tion, you discovered groups of figures sketched in 
various methods, some outlined with charcoal, some 
etched with strokes, some shadowed with the stump, 


1 Vasari, xii. 177 et seg. Condivi, a more faithful describer than 
Vasari, is silent here. 





FIGURE OF A BATHER. 





VASARI’S DESCRIPTION. 169 


some relieved in white-lead; the master having 
sought to prove his empire over all materials of 
draughtsmanship. The craftsmen of design remained 
therewith astonied and dumbfounded, recognising 
the furthest reaches of their art revealed to them 
by this unrivalled masterpiece. Those who exa- 
mined the forms I have described, painters who in- 
spected and compared them with works hardly less 
divine, affirm that never in the history of human 
achievement was any product of a man’s brain seen 
like to them in mere supremacy. And certainly we 
have the right to believe this; for when the Cartoon 
was finished, and carried to the Hall of the Pope, 
amid the acclamation of all artists, and to the ex- 
ceeding fame of Michelangelo, the students who 
made drawings from it, as happened with foreigners 
and natives through many years in Florence, became 
men of mark in several branches. ‘This is obvious, 
for Aristotele da San Gallo worked there, as did 
Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, 
Francesco Granaccio, Baccio Bandinelli, and Alonso 
Berugetta, the Spaniard; they were followed by 
Andrea del Sarto, Franciabigio, Jacopo Sansovino, 
Rosso, Maturino, Lorenzetto, Tribolo, then a boy, 
Jacopo da Pontormo, and Pierin del Vaga: all of 
them first-rate masters of the Florentine school.” 
It does not appear from this that Vasari pretended 
to have seen the great Cartoon. Born in 1512, he 
could not indeed have done so; but there breathes 
through his description a gust of enthusiasm, an 


170 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


afflatus of concurrent witnesses to its surpassing 
grandeur. Some of the details raise a suspicion 
that Vasari had before his eyes the transcript en 
grisatlle which he says was made by Aristotele da 
San Gallo, and also the engraving by Marcantonio 
Raimondi. The prominence given to the ivy- 
crowned old soldier troubled by his hose confirms 
the accuracy of the Holkham picture and the Alber- 
tina drawing.” But none of these partial transcripts 
left to us convey that sense of multitude, space, 
and varied action which Vasari’s words impress on 
the imagination. The fullest, that at Holkham, con- 
tains nineteen figures, and these are schematically 
arranged in three planes, with outlying subjects in 
foreground and background. Reduced in scale, and 
treated with the arid touch of a feeble craftsman, the 
linear composition suggests no large esthetic charm. 
It is simply a bas-relief of carefully selected attitudes 
and vigorously studied movements—nineteen men, 
more or less unclothed, put together with the scien- 
tific view of illustrating possibilities and conquering 
difficulties in postures of the adult male body. The 
extraordinary effect, as of something superhuman, 
produced by the Cartoon upon contemporaries, and 
preserved for us in Cellini’s and Vasari’s narratives, 
must then have been due to unexampled qualities 


* Pages 12 and 13 of Thausing’s essay. The fine early sketch by 
Michelangelo’s own hand at Vienna, opposite page 8 of the same essay, 
shows the old man in the foreground. He must have been a main 
feature in the composition. 


MASTERY OF THE NUDE. 171 


of strength in conception, draughtsmanship, and 
execution. It stung to the quick an age of artists 
who had abandoned the representation of religious 
sentiment and poetical feeling for technical triumphs 
and masterly solutions of mechanical problems in 
the treatment of the nude figure. We all know 
how much more than this Michelangelo had in him 
to give, and how unjust it would be to judge a 
masterpiece from his hand by the miserable relics 
now at our disposal. Still I cannot refrain from 
thinking that the Cartoon for the Battle of Pisa, 
taken up by him as a field for the display of 
his ability, must, by its very brilliancy, have acce- 
lerated the ruin of Italian art. Cellini, we saw, 
placed it above the frescoes of the Sistine. In 
force, veracity, and realism it may possibly have been 
superior to those sublime productions. Everything 
we know about the growth of Michelangelo's genius 
leads us to suppose that he departed gradually but 
surely from the path of Nature. He came, however, 
to use what he had learned from Nature as means for 
the expression of soul-stimulating thoughts. This, 
the finest feature of his genius, no artist of the age was 
capable of adequately comprehending. Accordingly, 
they agreed in extolling a cartoon which displayed his 
faculty of dealing with wn bel corpo ignudo as the 
climax of his powers. 

As might be expected, there was no landscape in the 
Cartoon. Michelangelo handled his subject wholly 
from the point of view of sculpture. A broken 


172 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


bank and a retreating platform, a few rocks in the 
distance and a few waved lines in the foreground, 
showed that the naked men were by a river. Michel- 
angelo’s unrelenting contempt. for..the. many-formed.. 
and many-coloured stage on which we live and 
move—his steady determination. to..treat.men~and 


women as nudities posed in..the...void,..with. just. _ 


enough of solid substance beneath | their feet.to.make 
their attitudes’ intelligible—is a point, which must 
over and over again be insisted on.....In the psychol- 
ogy of the master, regarded from any side one likes 
to take, this constitutes his leading characteristic. 
It. gives the key, not only to his talent as an artist, 
but ‘also to his temperament as a man. 

Marcantonio seems to have felt and resented the 
aridity of composition, the isolation of plastic form, 
the tyranny of anatomical science, which even the 
most sympathetic of us feel in Michelangelo. This 
master’s engraving of three lovely nudes, the most 
charming memento preserved to us from the Car- 
toon, introduces a landscape of grove and farm, field 
and distant hill, lending suavity to the muscular 
male body and restoring it to its proper place among 
the sinuous lines and broken curves of Nature. 
That the landscape was adapted from a copper-plate 
of Lucas van Leyden signifies nothing. It serves 
the soothing purpose which sensitive nerves, irri- 
tated by Michelangelo’s aloofness from all else but 
thought and naked flesh and posture, gratefully 
acknowledge. 


ANECDOTE OF LIONARDO. 173 


While Michelangelo was finishing his Cartoon, 
Lionardo da Vinci was painting his fresco. Circum- 
stances may have brought the two chiefs of Italian 
art frequently together in the streets of Florence. 
There exists an anecdote of one encounter, which, 
though it rests upon the credit of an anonymous 
writer, and does not reflect a pleasing light upon 
the hero of this biography, cannot be neglected.’ 
“Tjionardo,” writes our authority, “was a man of 
fair presence, well-proportioned, gracefully endowed, 
and of fine aspect. He wore a tunic of rose-colour, 
falling to his knees; for at that time it was the 
fashion to carry garments of some length; and down 
to the middle of his breast there flowed a beard 
beautifully curled and well arranged.’ Walking 
with a friend near S. Trinitd, where a company of 
honest folk were gathered, and talk was going on 
about some passage from Dante, they called to 
Lionardo, and begged him to explain its meaning. 
It so happened that just at this moment Michel- 
angelo went by, and, being hailed by one of them, 
Lionardo answered: ‘There goes Michelangelo; he 
will interpret the verses you require. Whereupon 
Michelangelo, who thought he spoke in this way to 
make fun of him, replied in anger: ‘Explain them 
yourself, you who made the model of a horse to 
cast in bronze, and could not cast it, and to your 


1 Gotti, vol. i. p. 48. 
2 This recalls Lionardo’s chalk-drawings of his own head in old age, 
and the oil-picture at the Uffizi. 


174 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


shame left it in the lurch.’’ With these words, he 
turned his back to the group, and went his way. 
Lionardo remained standing there, red in the face 
for the reproach cast at him; and Michelangelo, 
not satisfied, but wanting to sting him to the quick, 
added : ‘And those Milanese capons believed in your 
ability to do it!’” 

We can only take anecdotes for what they are 
worth, and that may perhaps be considered slight 
when they are anonymous. This anecdote, how- 
ever, in the original Florentine diction, although it 
betrays a partiality for Lionardo, bears the aspect 
of truth to fact. Moreover, even Michelangelo’s 
admirers are bound to acknowledge that he had a 
rasping tongue, and was not incapable of showing 
his bad temper by rudeness. From the period of 
his boyhood, when Torrigiano smashed his nose, 
down to the last years of his life in Rome, when 
he abused his nephew Lionardo and hurt the feel- 
ings of his best and oldest friends, he discovered 
signs of a highly nervous and fretful temperament. 
It must be admitted that the dominant qualities of 
nobility and generosity in his nature were alloyed 
by suspicion bordering on littleness, and by petulant 
yieldings to the irritation of the moment which are 
incompatible with the calm of an Olympian genius. 


1 The equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza. 


CHAPTER V 


rt, Bramante’s intrigues at Rome against Michelangelo.—Friends entreat 
him to return.—His fear of Julius—The Pope corresponds with 
the Signory about his extradition.—Julius is now at Bologna.— 
Michelangelo decides to go and beg his pardon there.—Two 
sonnets on the Pope.—Account of the campaign undertaken by 
Julius.—z. Michelangelo reaches Bologna in November 1506.—Is 
received and pardoned.—Julius commissions him to cast his statue 
in bronze.—His penurious lite at Bologna.—Ill served by work- 
men.—The dagger designed for P. Aldobrandinii—Meeting with 
Francia.—3. Preparations for casting the statue of Julius.— Partial 
failure of the first attempt.— The second completes the work.— 
Chasing and finishing.—The statue placed above the door of 8. 
Petronio, February 21, 1508.—Its destruction in 1511.—Michel- 
angelo returns to Florence in March.—4. Michelangelo emancipated 
by his father.—Joins Julius in Rome.—First project for the vault 
of the Sistine.—Second and larger scheme.—The scaffolding.— 
Michelangelo engages Florentine fresco-painters.—Begins to pre- 
pare cartoons in May.—His method.—Finds that his assistants are 
useless.—Practical difficulties with the fresco.—Julius visits him 
upon the scaffolding.—s. The first half of the vault uncovered, 
November 1, 1509.—Its immediate and immense success.— 
Raffaello da Urbino.—Bramante’s attempt to procure for him the 
completion of the vault.—The rivalry and quarrels of artists at 
Rome.—6. Michelangelo’s profound silence with regard to his own 
art-work.—7. Fabulous tradition concerning the space of time em- 
ployed upon the Sistine. Unfinished state of the frescoes when 
they were finally exposed to view, October 15, I 512.—8. Domestic 
life in Rome.—The boy from Florence.—Angry letters to his 
brothers.—lIrritability combined with deep and lasting love for his 
family.—Kind letters to his father.—The battle of Ravenna and 
the sack of Prato.—Return of the Medici to Florence in September 
1512.—Michelangelo’s anxiety.—His attitude toward the Medici. 
—g. The sonnet to Giovanni da Pistoja about the frescoes of the 


Sistine. 
175 


176 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


I. 


WuitE Michelangelo was living and working at 
Florence, Bramante had full opportunity to poison 
the Pope’s mind in Rome. It is commonly believed, 
on the faith of a sentence in Condivi, that Bramante, 
when he dissuaded Julius from building the tomb in 
his own lifetime, suggested the painting of the Sistine 
Chapel. We are told that he proposed Michelangelo 
for this work, hoping his genius would be hampered 
by a task for which he was not fitted. There are 
many improbabilities in this story; not the least 
being our certainty that the fame of the Cartoon must 
have reached Bramante before Michelangelo’s arrival 
in the first months of 1505. But the Cartoon did not 
prove that Buonarroti was a practical wall-painter or 
colourist ; and we have reason to believe that J ulius 
had himself conceived the notion of intrusting the 
Sistine to his sculptor. A good friend of Michel- 
angelo, Pietro Rosselli, wrote this letter on the 
subject, May 6, 1506:1 “Last Saturday evening, 
when the Pope was at supper, I showed him some 
designs which Bramante and I had to test 5 so, 
after supper, when I had displayed them, he called 
for Bramante, and said: ‘San Gallo is going to 
Florence to-morrow, and will bring Michelangelo 
back with him.’ Bramante answered: ‘ Holy Father, 
he will not be able to do anything of the kind. I 
1 Gotti, i. p. 46. 





BRAMANTE’S INTRIGUES. 177 


have conversed much with Michelangelo, and he 
has often told me that he would not undertake the 
chapel, which you wanted to put upon him; and 
that, you notwithstanding, he meant only to apply 
himself to sculpture, and would have nothing to 
do with painting.’ To this he added: ‘ Holy Father, 
I do not think he has the courage to attempt the 
work, because he has small experience in painting 
figures, and these will be raised high above the 
line of vision, and in foreshortening (2.e., because 
of the vault). That is something different from 
painting on the ground.’ The Pope replied: ‘Tf 
he does not come, he will do me wrong; and so I 
think that he is sure to return.’ Upon this I up, 
and gave the man a sound rating in the Pope's 
presence, and spoke as I believe you would have 
spoken for me ; and for the time he was struck dumb, 
as though he felt that he had made a mistake in 
talking as he did. I proceeded as follows: ‘ Holy 
Father, that man never exchanged a word with 
Michelangelo, and if what he has just said is the 
truth, I beg you to cut my head off, for he never 
spoke to Michelangelo; also I feel sure that he 
is certain to return, if your Holiness requires 
it. 9) 

This altercation throws doubt on the statement 
that Bramante originally suggested Michelangelo as 
painter of the Sistine. He could hardly have turned 
round against his own recommendation ; and, more- 


over, it is likely that he would have wished to keep 
VOL. I. M 


178 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO, 


so great a work in the hands of his own set, Raffaello, 
Peruzzi, Sodoma, and others.! 

Meanwhile, Michelangelo’s friends in Rome wrote 
encouraging him to come back. They clearly thought 
that he was hazarding both profit and honour if 
he stayed away.” But Michelangelo, whether the 
constitutional timidity of which I have spoken, or 
other reasons damped his courage, felt that he could 
not trust to the Pope’s mercies. What effect San 
Gallo may have had upon him, supposing this archi- 
tect arrived in Florence at the middle of May, can 
only be conjectured. The fact remains that he con- 
tinued stubborn for a time. In the lengthy autobio- 
graphical letter written to some prelate in 1542, 
Michelangelo relates what followed:* “Later on, 
while I was at Florence, Julius sent three briefs to 
the Signory. At last the latter sent for me and said: 
‘We do not want to go to war with Pope Julius 
because of you. You must return; and if you do > 
So, we will write you letters of such authority that, 
should he do you harm, he will be doing it to this 
Signory. Accordingly I took the letters, and went 
back to the Pope.” 

Condivi gives a graphic account of the transac- 
tions which ensued. ‘During the months he 
stayed in Florence three papal briefs were sent to 


1 For the social gatherings of painters at Bramante’s house in Rome, 
see Vasari, xili. 73. 

2 See Giovanni Balducci’s letter, May 8, 1506, in Gotti, vol. ii. Pp. 52, 

3 Lettere, No, cdxxxv. * Condivi, p. 30. 3 





JULIUS SENDS FOR MICHELANGELO. 179 


the Signory, full of threats, commanding that he 
should be sent back by fair means or by force. 
Piero Soderini, who was Gonfalonier for life at that 
time, had sent him against his own inclination to 
Rome when Julius first asked for him. Accord- 
ingly, when the first of these briefs arrived, he did 
not compel Michelangelo to go, trusting that the 
Pope’s anger would calm down. But when the 
second and the third were sent, he called Michel- 
angelo and said: ‘You have tried a bout with the 
Pope on which the King of France would not have 
ventured; therefore you must not go on letting 
yourself be prayed for. We do not wish to go to 
war on your account with him, and put our state 
in peril. Make your mind up to return.’ Michel- 
angelo, seeing himself brought to this pass, and 
still fearing the anger of the Pope, bethought him 
of taking refuge in the East. The Sultan indeed 
besought him with most liberal promises, through 
the means of certain Franciscan friars, to come and 
construct a bridge from Constantinople to Pera, and 
to execute other great works. When the Gon- 
falonier got wind of this intention he sent for 
Michelangelo and used these arguments to dissuade 
him : ‘It were better to choose death with the Pope 
than to keep in life by going to the Turk. Never- 
theless, there is no fear of such an ending; for the 
Pope is well disposed, and sends for you because 
he loves you, not to do you harm. If you are 
afraid, the Signory will send you with the title of 


180 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


ambassador; forasmuch as public personages are 
never treated with violence, since this would be done 
to those who send them.’ ” 

We only possess one brief from Julius to the 
Signory of Florence. It is dated Rome, July 8, 
1506, and contains this passage:* ‘‘ Michelangelo 
the sculptor, who left us without reason, and in 
mere caprice, is afraid, as we are informed, of re- 
turning, though we for our part are not angry with 
him, knowing the humours of such men of genius. 
In order, then, that he may lay aside all anxiety, we 
rely on your loyalty to convince him in our name, 
that if he returns to us, he shall be uninjured and 
unhurt, retaining our apostolic favour in the same 
measure as he formerly enjoyed it.” The date, 
July 8, is important in this episode of Michelangelo’s 
life. Soderini sent back an answer to the Pope’s 
brief within a few days, affirming that “ Michel- 
angelo the sculptor is so terrified? that, notwith- 
standing the promise of his Holiness, it will be 
necessary for the Cardinal of Pavia to write a letter 
signed by his own hand to us, guaranteeing his 
safety andimmunity. We have done, and are doing, 
all we can to make him go back; assuring your 
Lordship that, unless he is gently handled, he will 
quit Florence, as he has already twice wanted to 


1 Bottari, Lett. Pitt, iii. p. 472. 

2 Michelangelo, in one draft of his letter to Fattucci (Lettere, No. 
ecclxxxiv.), writes: “Dipoi circa sette o otto mesi che io stetti quasi 
ascoso per paura, sendo crucciato meco el Papa.” 





SODERINIS CORRESPONDENCE. 181 


do.” This letter is followed by another addressed 
to the Cardinal of Volterra under date July pel 
Soderini repeats that Michelangelo will not budge, 
because he has as yet received no definite safe-con- 
duct. It appears that in the course of August the 
negotiations had advanced to a point at which 
Michelangelo was willing to return. On the last 
day of the month the Signory drafted a letter to the 
Cardinal of Pavia in which they say that “ Michel- 
angelo Buonarroti, sculptor, citizen of Florence, and 
greatly loved by us, will exhibit these letters present, 
having at last been persuaded to repose confidence 
sn his Holiness.” ‘They add that he is coming in 
good spirits and with good-will. Something may 
have happened to renew his terror, for this despatch 
was not delivered, and nothing more is heard of the 
transaction till toward the close of November. It 
is probable, however, that Soderini suddenly dis- 
covered how little Michelangelo was likely to be 
wanted; Julius, on the 27th of August, having 
started on what appeared to be his mad campaign 
against Perugia and Bologna. On the 21st of 
November following the Cardinal of Pavia sent an 
autograph letter from Bologna to the Signory, 
urgently requesting that they would despatch 
Michelangelo immediately to that town, inasmuch 
as the Pope was impatient for his arrival, and 
wanted to employ him on important works. Six 


1 See Gaye, vol. ii pp. 83, 84, 85, 91, 93, for the whole corre- 
spondence, 


182 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


days later, November 27, Soderini writes two letters, 
one to the Cardinal of Pavia and one to the Cardinal 
of Volterra, which finally conclude the whole busi- 
ness. The epistle to Volterra begins thus: “The 
bearer of these present will be Michelangelo, the 
sculptor, whom we send to please and satisfy his 
Holiness. We certify that he is an excellent young 
man, and in his own art without peer in Italy, per- 
haps also in the universe. We cannot recommend 
him more emphatically. His nature is such, that 
with good words and kindness, if these are given him, 
he will do everything ; one has to show him love 
and treat him kindly, and he will perform things 
which will make the whole world wonder.” The 
letter to Pavia is written more familiarly, reading 
like a private introduction. In both of them Soderini 
enhances the service he is rendering the Pope by 
alluding to the magnificent design for the Battle of 
Pisa which Michelangelo must leave unfinished. 
Before describing his reception at Bologna, it 
may be well to quote two sonnets here which throw 
an interesting light upon Michelangelo’s personal 
feeling for Julius and his sense of the corruption 
of the Roman Curia.” The first may well have 
been written during this residence at Florence ;® 
and the autograph of the second has these curious 


1 He says that Michelangelo has principiato una storia per uw pubblico 
che sara cosa admiranda. ; 

2 Rime: Sonnets, Nos. iii. and iv. 

* A drawing at Oxford for the battle of Pisa has this sonnet written 
on the back. See Robinson, p. 21. 





SONNETS ON THE POPE. 183 


words added at the foot of the page: “Vostro Michel- 
angniolo, in Turchia.” Rome itself, the Sacred City, 
has become a land of infidels, and Michelangelo, 
whose thoughts are turned to the Levant, implies 
that he would find himself no worse off with the 
Sultan than the Pope. 


My Lord ! if ever ancient saw spake sooth, 

Hear this which saith : Who can doth never will. 
Lo, thou hast lent thine ear to fables still, 
Rewarding those who hate the name of truth. 

I am thy drudge, and have been from my youth— 
Thine, like the rays which the sun’s circle fill ; 
Yet of my dear time’s waste thou think’st no ill: 
The more I toil, the less I move thy ruth. 

Once ’twas my hope to raise me by thy height ; 
But ’tis the balance and the powerful sword 
Of Justice, not false Echo, that we need, 

Heaven, as it seems, plants virtue in despite 
Here on the earth, if this be our reward— 

To seek for fruit on trees too dry to breed. 


Here helms and swords are made of chalices : 
The blood of Christ is sold so much the quart: . 
His cross and thorns are spears and shields ; and short 
Must be the time ere even His patience cease. 
Nay, let Him come no more to raise the fees 
Of this foul sacrilege beyond report : 
For Rome still flays and sells Him at the court, 
Where paths are closed to virtue’s fair increase. 
Now were fit time for me to scrape a treasure, 
Seeing that work and gain are gone ; while he 
Who wears the robe, is my Medusa still. 
God welcomes poverty perchance with pleasure : 
But of that better life what hope have we, | 
When the blessed banner leads to nought but ill? 


184 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


While Michelangelo was planning frescoes and 
venting his bile in sonnets, the fiery Pope had 
started on his perilous career of conquest. He 
called the Cardinals together, and informed them 
that he meant to free the cities of Perugia and 
Bologna from their tyrants. God, he said, would 
protect His Church; he could rely on the support 
of France and Florence. Other Popes had stirred 
up wars and used the services of generals; he meant 
to take the field in person. Louis XII. is reported to 
have jeered among his courtiers at the notion of a 
high-priest riding to the wars. A few days afterwards, 
on the 27th of August, the Pope left Rome attended 
by twenty-four cardinals and 500 men-at-arms. 
He had previously secured the neutrality of Venice 
and a promise of troops from the French court. 
When Julius reached Orvieto, he was met by Gian- 
paolo Baglioni, the bloody and _licentious despot 
of Perugia. Notwithstanding Baglioni knew that 
Julius was coming to assert his supremacy, and 
notwithstanding the Pope knew that this might 
drive to desperation a man so violent and stained 
with crime as Baglioni, they rode together to 
Perugia, where Gianpaolo paid homage and sup- 
plied his haughty guest with soldiers. The rash- 
ness of this act of Julius sent a thrill of admiration 
throughout Italy, stirring that sense of terribilita | 
which fascinated the imagination of the Renaissance. 
Machiavelli, commenting upon the action of the 
Baglioni, remarks that the event proved how diffi- 





JULIUS ENTERS BOLOGNA. 185 


cult it is for a man to be perfectly and scientifically 
wicked. Gianpaolo, he says, murdered his rela- 
tions, oppressed his subjects, and boasted of being 
a father by his sister; yet, when he got his worst 
enemy into his clutches, he had not the spirit to 
be magnificently criminal, and murder or imprison 
Julius. From Perugia the Pope crossed the Apen- 
nines, and found himself at Imola upon the 20th of 
October. ‘There he received news that the French 
governor of Milan, at the order of his king, was 
about to send him a reinforcement of 600 lances 
and 3000 foot-soldiers. ‘This announcement, while 
it cheered the heart of Julius, struck terror into 
the Bentivogli, masters of Bologna. They left 
their city and took refuge in Milan, while the 
people of Bologna sent envoys to the Pope’s camp, 
surrendering their town and themselves to his 
apostolic clemency. On the 11th of November, 8. 
Martin’s day, Giuliano della Rovere made his 
triumphal entry into Bologna, having restored two 
wealthy provinces to the states of the Church by 
a stroke of sheer audacity, unparalleled in the 
history of any previous pontiff. Ten days after- 
wards we find him again renewing negotiations with 
the Signory for the extradition of Michelangelo. 


186 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO, 


Il. 


“ Arriving then one morning at Bologna, and 
going to hear Mass at S. Petronio, there met him 
the Pope’s grooms of the stable, who immediately 
recognised him, and brought him into the presence 
of his Holiness, then at table in the Palace of the 
Sixteen.» When the Pope beheld him, his face 
clouded with anger, and he cried: ‘It was your 
duty to come to seek us, and you have waited till 
we came to seek you;’ meaning thereby that his 
Holiness having travelled to Bologna, which is much 
nearer to Florence than Rome, he had come to find 
him out. Michelangelo knelt, and prayed for par- 
don in a loud voice, pleading in his excuse that 
he had not erred through frowardness, but through 
great distress of mind, having been unable to endure 
the expulsion he received. The Pope remained hold- 
ing his head low and answering nothing, evidently 
much agitated; when a certain prelate, sent by Car- 
dinal Soderini to put in a good word for Michelangelo, 
came forward and said: ‘ Your Holiness might over- 
look his fault; he did wrong through ignorance: 
these painters, outside their art, are all like this.’ 
Thereupon the Pope answered in a fury: ‘It is you, 
not I, who are insulting him. It is you, not he, 
who are the ignoramus and the rascal. Get hence 
out of my sight, and bad luck to you!’ When 

* Condivi, p. 31. 





MICHELANGELO RETURNS TO THE POPE. 1387 


the fellow did not move, he was cast forth by the 
servants, as Michelangelo used to relate, with good 
round kicks and thumpings. So the Pope, having 
spent the surplus of his bile upon the bishop, took 
Michelangelo apart and pardoned him. Not long 
afterwards he sent for him and said: ‘I wish you 
to make my statue on a large scale in bronze. I 
mean to place it on the facade of San Petronio.’ 
When he went to Rome in course of time, he left 
1000 ducats at the bank of Messer Antonmaria da 
Lignano for this purpose. But before he did so 
Michelangelo had made the clay model. Being in 
some doubt how to manage the left hand, after 
making the Pope give the benediction with the 
right, he asked Julius, who had come to see the 
statue, if he would like it to hold a book. ‘What 
book?’ replied he: ‘a sword! I know nothing 
about letters, not I.’ Jesting then about the right 
hand, which was vehement in action, he said with 
a smile to Michelangelo: ‘That statue of yours, is 
it blessing or cursing?’ To which the sculptor : 
‘Holy Father, it is threatening this people of 
Bologna if they are not prudent.’” 

Michelangelo’s letter to Fattucci confirms Con- 
divi’s narrative ‘When Pope Julius went to 
Bologna the first time, I was forced to go there with 
a rope round my neck to beg his pardon. He 
ordered me to make his portrait in bronze, sitting, 
about seven cubits (14 feet) in height. When he 


1 Lettere, No. ceclxxxiil. 


188 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


asked what it would cost, I answered that I thought 
I could cast it for 1000 ducats; but that this was 
not my trade, and that I did not wish to undertake 
it. He answered: ‘Go to work; you shall cast it 
over and over again till it succeeds; and I will give 
you enough to satisfy your wishes.’ To put it 
briefly, I cast the statue twice; and at the end of 
two years, at Bologna, I found that I had four and 
a half ducats left. I never received anything more 
for this job; and all the moneys I paid out during 
the said two years were the 1000 ducats with which 
I promised to cast it. These were disbursed to me 
in instalments by Messer Antonio Maria da Legnano, 
a Bolognese.” 

The statue must have been more than thrice life- 
size, if it rose fourteen feet in a sitting posture. 
Michelangelo worked at the model in a hall called 
the Stanza del Pavaglione behind the Cathedral. 
Three experienced workmen were sent, at his re- 
quest, from Florence, and he began at once upon 
the arduous labour. His domestic correspondence, 
which at this period becomes more copious and in- 
teresting, contains a good deal of information con- 
cerning his residence at Bologna. His mode of life, 
as usual, was miserable and penurious in the extreme. 
This man, about whom popes and cardinals and gon- 
faloniers had been corresponding, now hired a single 
room with one bed in it, where, as we have seen, 
he slept together with his three assistants. There 
can be no doubt that such eccentric habits prevented 


TROUBLE WITH WORKMEN. 18g 


Michelangelo from inspiring his subordinates with 
due respect. The want of control over servants and 
workmen, which is a noticeable feature of his 
private life, may in part be attributed to this cause. 
And now, at Bologna, he soon got into trouble with 
the three craftsmen he had engaged to help him. 
They were Lapo d’Antonio di Lapo, a sculptor at 
the Opera del Duomo; Lodovico del Buono, sur- 
named Lotti, a metal-caster and founder of cannon ; 
and Pietro Urbano, a craftsman who continued long 
in his service. Lapo boasted that he was executing 
the statue in partnership with Michelangelo and 
upon equal terms, which did not seem incredible 
considering their association in a single bedroom. 
Beside this, he intrigued and cheated in money 
matters. The master felt that he must get rid of 
him, and send the fellow back to Florence. Lapo, 
not choosing to go alone, lest the truth of the affair 
should be apparent, persuaded Lodovico to join 
him; and when they reached home, both began 
to calumniate their master. Michelangelo, knowing 
that they were likely to do so, wrote to his brother 
Buonarroto on the 1st of February 1507:* ‘“‘I in- 
form you further how on Friday morning I sent 
away Lapo and Lodovico, who were in my service. 
Lapo, because he is good for nothing and a rogue, 
and could not serve me. Lodovico is better, and I 
should have been willing to keep him another two 
months, but Lapo, in order to prevent blame falling 
1 Lettere, No. L 


190 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


on himself alone, worked upon the other so that 
both went away together. I write you this, not that 
I regard them, for they are not worth three farthings, 
the pair of them, but because if they come to talk 
to Lodovico (Buonarroti) he must not be surprised 
at what they say. Tell him by no means to lend 
them his ears; and if you want to be informed 
about them, go to Messer Angelo, the herald of 
the Signory ;* for I have written the whole story 
to him, and he will, out of his kindly feeling, tell 
you just what happened.” 

In spite of these precautions, Lapo seems to haye 
gained the ear of Michelangelo’s father, who wrote 
a scolding letter in his usual puzzle-headed way. 
Michelangelo replied in a tone of real and ironical 
humility, which is exceedingly characteristic:” ‘‘Most 
revered father, I have received a letter from you 
to-day, from which I learn that you have been in- 
formed by Lapo and Lodovico. I am glad that you 
should rebuke me, because I deserve to be rebuked 
as a ne’er-do-well and sinner as much as any one, or 
perhaps more. But you must know that I have not 
been guilty in the affair for which you take me to 
task now, neither as regards them nor any one else, 
except it be in doing more than was my duty.” 
After this exordium he proceeds to give an elabo- 

1 His surname was Manfidi. As second herald of the Signory, he 
took part in the debate upon the placing of the David. See above, p. 
94. He was a good friend of Michelangelo’s, and one of his letters is 


preserved in the Archiv. Buon., Cod. ix. No. 506. 
4 Lettere, No. iv., date February 8, 1507. 


= 


LIFE AT BOLOGNA. Ig! 


rate explanation of his dealings with Lapo, and the 
man’s roguery. 

The correspondence with Buonarroto turns to a 
considerable extent upon a sword-hilt which Michel- 
angelo designed for the Florentine, Pietro Aldo- 
brandini.t It was the custom then for gentlemen to 
carry swords and daggers with hilt and scabbard won- 
derfully wrought by first-rate artists. Some of these, 
still extant, are among the most exquisite specimens 
of sixteenth-century craft.? This little affair gave 
Michelangelo considerable trouble. First of all, the 
man who had to make the blade was long about it. 
From the day when the Pope came to Bologna, he 
had more custom than all the smiths in the city 
were used in ordinary times to deal with. Then, 
when the weapon reached Florence, it turned out 
to be too short. Michelangelo affirmed that he had 
ordered it exactly to the measure sent, adding that 
Aldobrandini was “probably not born to wear a 
dagger at his belt.” He bade his brother present 
it to Filippo Strozzi, as a compliment from the 
Buonarroti family; but the matter was bungled. 
Probably Buonarroto tried to get some valuable 
equivalent; for Michelangelo writes to say that he 
is sorry “he behaved so scurvily toward Filippo in 
so trifling an affair.” 

Nothing at all transpires in these letters regard- 

1 Lettere, Nos, xlviii., xlix., liv., lv., lvil, lviii. 


2 See, for example, the illustrations to Yriarte’s Autour des Borgo 
Paris; Rothschild, 1891. Troisi¢me Partie. 


192 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


ing the company kept by Michelangelo at Bologna. 
The few stories related by tradition which refer to 
this period are not much to the sculptor’s credit for 
courtesy.. The painter Francia, for instance, came 
to see the statue, and made the commonplace remark 
that he thought it very well cast and of excellent 
bronze. Michelangelo took this as an insult to his 
design, and replied: “I owe the same thanks to 
Pope Julius who supplied the metal, as you do to 
the colourmen who sell you paints.” Then, turning 
to some gentlemen present there, he added that 
Francia was ‘‘a blockhead.” Francia had a son re- 
markable for youthful beauty. When Michelangelo 
first saw him he asked whose son he was, and, on 
being informed, uttered this caustic compliment :? 
‘Your father makes handsomer living figures than 
he paints them.” On some other occasion, a stupid 
Bolognese gentleman asked whether he thought 
his statue or a pair of oxen were the bigger. 
Michelangelo replied:* “That is according to the 
oxen. If Bolognese, oh! then without a doubt 
ours of Florence are smaller.” Possibly Albrecht 
Diirer may have met him in the artistic circles of 
Bologna, since he came from Venice on a visit 


1 Vasari, xii. p. 186. 

2 Compare this with Benyv. da Imola’s story aboue Giotto. “When 
Dante saw some of Giotto’s children, very ugly and like their father, 
he asked how it was that he painted such fair figures and begat such 
foul ones. Giotto smiled and answered : ‘It is because I paint by day, 
and make models of living men by night.’ ” 

3 The point seems to depend upon ae fact that bue in Italy is the name 
for a dullard or a cuckold, 


EE EE ee eee 


THE STATUE OF JULIUS. 193 


during these years;* but nothing is known about 
their intercourse. 


II. 


Julius left Bologna on the 22nd of February 1507. 
Michelangelo remained working diligently at his 
model. In less than three months it was nearly 
ready to be cast. Accordingly, the sculptor, who 
had no practical knowledge of bronze-founding, sent 
to Florence for a man distinguished in that craft, 
Maestro dal Ponte of Milan. During the last three 
years he had been engaged as Master of the 
Ordnance under the Republic. His leave of absence 
was signed upon the 15th of May 1507. 

Meanwhile the people of Bologna were already 
planning revolution. The Bentivogli retained a firm 
hereditary hold on their affections, and the govern- 
ment of priests is never popular, especially among 
the nobles of a state. Michelangelo writes to his 
brother Giovan Simone (May 2) describing the 
bands of exiles who hovered round the city and 
kept its burghers in alarm:” “The folk are stifling 
in their coats of mail; for during four days past 
the whole county is under arms, in great confusion 
and peril, especially the party of the Church.” The 
Papal Legate, Francesco Alidosi, Cardinal of Pavia, 


1 Grimm, vol. i. p. 319. 2 Lettere, No, cxxvi. 
VOL, I. N 


194 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


took such prompt measures that the attacking troops 
were driven back.’ He also executed some of the 
citizens who had intrigued with the exiled family. 
The summer was exceptionally hot, and plague 
hung about; all articles of food were dear and bad.* 
Michelangelo felt miserable, and fretted to be free ; 
but the statue kept him hard at work. 

When the time drew nigh for the great operation, 
he wrote in touching terms to Buonarroto:’* “Tell 
Lodovico (their father) that in the middle of next 
month I hope to cast my figure without fail. There- 
fore, if he wishes to offer prayers or aught else 
for its good success, let him do so betimes, and 
say that I beg this of him.” Nearly the whole of 
June elapsed, and the business still dragged on. 
At last, upon the 1st of July, he advised his brother 
thus:* ‘‘ We have cast my figure, and it has come 
out so badly that I verily believe I shall have to 
do it all over again. I reserve details, for I have 
other things to think of. Enough that it has gone 
wrong. Still I thank God, because I take every- 


1 This man, of considerable ability but bad character, abused the 
confidence of Julius. When Bologna broke loose from the Papal rule 
in 1511, the calamity was ascribed, apparently with justice, to his treason 
and incompetence. The Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere, acting as 
general for his uncle Julius, stabbed the Cardinal with his own hands 
to death upon the open street of Ravenna. This happened on the 
24th of May—one of the most memorable acts of violence in Italian 
Renaissance annals. A good account of the whole matter is given in 
Dennistoun’s “ Dukes of Urbino,” vol, i, p. 314 et seg. 

2 Lettere, Nos. lv., Ixviii., xxiv. 

3 Lettere, No, lx., date May 26. 

4 Lettere, Nos, Ixii., lxiii, 


CASTING OF THE STATUE. 195 


thing for the best.” From the next letter we learn 
that only the lower half of the statue, up to the 
girdle, was properly cast. The metal for the rest 
remained in the furnace, probably in the state of 
what Cellini called a cake. The furnace had to 
be pulled down and rebuilt, so as to cast the upper 
half. Michelangelo adds that he does not know 
whether Master Bernardino mismanaged the matter 
from ignorance or bad luck. “I had such faith in 
him that I thought he could have cast the statue 
without fire. Nevertheless, there is no denying 
that he is an able craftsman, and that he worked 
with good-will. Well, he has failed, to my loss 
and also to his own, seeing he gets so much blame 
that he dares not lift his head up in Bologna.” 
The second casting must have taken place about 
the 8th of July; for on the 1oth Michelangelo 
writes that it is done, but the clay is too hot for 
the result to be reported, and Bernardino leit 
yesterday. When the statue was uncovered, he 
was able to reassure his brother:* “My affair 
might have turned out much better, and also much 
worse. At all events, the whole is there, so far as 
I can see; for it is not yet quite disengaged. | 
shall want, I think, some months to work it up 
with file and hammer, because it has come out 
rough. Well, well, there is much to thank God 
for; as I said, it might have been worse.’ On 


1 Vita, lib. ii. 76. 2 Lettere, No. lxiv. 
3 Lettere, Nos. lxv., lxvi. 


196 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


making further discoveries, he finds that the cast is 
far less bad than he expected; but the labour of 
cleaning it with the polishing tools proved longer 
and more irksome than he expected:’ “I am 
exceedingly anxious to get away home, for here I 
pass my life in huge discomfort and with extreme 
fatigue. I work night and day, do nothing else ; 
and the labour I am forced to undergo is such, that 
if I had to begin the whole thing over again, I do 
not think I could survive it. Indeed, the under- 
taking has been one of enormous difficulty; and 
if it had been in the hand of another man, we 
should have fared but ill with it. However, I be- 
lieve that the prayers of some one have sustained 
and kept me in health, because all Bologna thought 
I should never bring it to a proper end.” We can 
see that Michelangelo was not unpleased with the 
result; and the statue must have been finished soon 
after the New Year. However, he could not leave 
Bologna. On the 18th of February 1508 he writes 
to Buonarroto that he is kicking his heels, having 
received orders from the Pope to stay until the 
bronze was placed.” Three days later—that is, upon 
the 21st of February—the Pope’s portrait was 
hoisted to its pedestal above the great central door 
of S. Petronio. 

It remained there rather less than three years. 
When the Papal Legate fled from Bologna in 1511, 


1 Lettere, No. lxxii., date November 10, 1507. 
2 Lettere, No. lxxv, 


FATE OF THE STATUE. 197 


and the party of the Bentivogli gained the upper 
hand, they threw the mighty mass of sculptured 
bronze, which had cost its maker so much trouble, 
to the ground. That happened on the 30th of 
December. The Bentivogli sent it to the Duke 
Alfonso d’Este of Ferrara, who was a famous engi- 
neer and gunsmith. He kept the head intact, but 
cast a huge cannon out of part of the material, 
which took the name of La Giulia. What became 
of the head is unknown. It is said to have weighed 
600 pounds.’ 

So perished another of Michelangelo’s master- 
pieces; and all we know for certain about the 
statue is that Julius was seated, in full pontificals, 
with the triple tiara on his head, raising the right 
hand to bless, and holding the keys of S. Peter in 
the left.” 

Michelangelo reached Florence early in March. 
On the 18th of that month he began again to occupy 
his house at Borgo Pinti, taking it this time on 
hire from the Operai del Duomo.* We may suppose, 
therefore, that he intended to recommence work on 
the Twelve Apostles. A new project seems also 
to have been started by his friend Soderini—that 
of making him erect a colossal statue of Hercules 
subduing Cacus opposite the David. The Gonfalonier 
was in correspondence with the Marquis of Carrara 


1 See the notices collected by Gotti, vol. i. p. 66. 
2 Cronaca Bolognese, MS., quoted by Milanesi ; Vasari, xii. 348 
8 Gaye, vol. il. p. 477. 


198 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


on the roth of May about a block of marble for 
this giant ;* but Michelangelo at that time had re- 
turned to Rome, and of the Cacus we shall hear 
more hereafter. 


IV. 


When Julius received news that his statue had 
been duly cast and set up in its place above the 
great door of S. Petronio, he began to be anxious 
to have Michelangelo once more near his person. 
The date at which the sculptor left Florence again 
for Rome is fixed approximately by the fact that 
Lodovico Buonarroti emancipated his son from 
parental control upon the 13th of March 1508. 
According to Florentine law, Michelangelo was not 
of age, nor master over his property and person, 
until this deed had been executed.’ 

In the often-quoted letter to Fattucci he says: 
‘““The Pope was still unwilling that I should com- 
plete the tomb, and ordered me to paint the vault 
of the Sistine. We agreed for 3000 ducats. The 
first design I made for this work had twelve apostles 
in the lunettes, the remainder being a certain space 
filled in with ornamental details, according to the 


1 Gaye, vol. il, p. 97. 

* It was registered in the State Archive on the 28th of March, 
Gotti, vol. 1. p. 70. 

8 Lettere, No. ccclxxxili, 


THE VAULT OF THE SISTINE. 199 


usual manner. After I had begun, it seemed to 
me that this would turn out rather meanly; and 
I told the Pope that the Apostles alone would yield 
a poor effect, in my opinion. He asked me why. 
I answered, ‘Because they too were poor.’ ‘Then 
he gave me commission to do what I liked best, 
and promised to satisfy my claims for the work, 
and told me to paint down to the pictured histories 
upon the lower row.” * 

There is little doubt that Michelangelo disliked 
beginning this new work, and that he would have 
greatly preferred to continue the sepulchral monu- 
ment, for which he had made such vast and costly 
preparations. He did not feel certain how he 
should succeed in fresco on a large scale, not 
having had any practice in that style of painting 
since he was a prentice under Ghirlandajo. It 
is true that the Cartoon for the Battle of Pisa had 
been a splendid success; still this, as we have seen, 
was not coloured, but executed in various methods 
of outline and chiaroscuro. Later on, while seriously 
engaged upon the Sistine, he complains to his 
father:? “I am still in great distress of mind, 
because it is now a year since I had a farthing 
from the Pope; and I do not ask, because my work 
is not going forward in a way that seems to me 
to deserve it. That comes from its difficulty, and 


1 Had this been done, he would have obliterated the double row of 
Botticelli’s Popes. 
2 Lettere, No. x., date January 27, 1509. 


200 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


also from this not being my trade.”* And so I 
waste my time without results. God help me.” 

We may therefore believe Condivi when he asserts 
that ‘‘ Michelangelo, who had not yet practised 
colouring, and knew that the painting of a vault 
is very difficult, endeavoured by all means to get 
himself excused, putting Raffaello forward as the 
proper man, and pleading that this was not his 
trade, and that he should not succeed.”’2 Condivi 
states in the same chapter that Julius had been 
prompted to intrust him with the Sistine by Bra- 
mante, who was jealous of his great abilities, and 
hoped he might fail conspicuously when he left 
the field of sculpture. I have given my reasons 
above for doubting the accuracy of this tradition ; 
and what we have just read of Michelangelo’s own 
hesitation confirms the statements made by Bra- 
mante in the Pope’s presence, as recorded by 
Rosselli. In fact, although we may assume the 
truth of Bramante’s hostility, it is difficult to form 
an exact conception of the intrigues he carried 
on against Buonarroti. 

Julius would not listen to any arguments. Ac- 
cordingly, Michelangelo made up his mind to obey 
the patron whom he nicknamed his Medusa. Bra- 
mante was commissioned to erect the scaffolding, 
which he did so clumsily, with beams suspended 


1 Also in the Sonnet to Giovanni da Pistoja (Aume, v.) he says: “Né 
io pittore.” 
2 Condivi, p. 34. 3 See above, p. 176. 





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PAINTERS SUMMONED FROM FLORENCE. 201 


from the vault by huge cables, that Michelangelo 
asked how the holes in the roof would be stopped 
up when his painting was finished. ‘The Pope 
allowed him to take down Bramante’s machinery, 
and to raise a scaffold after his own design. ‘The 
rope alone which had been used, and now was 
wasted, enabled a poor carpenter to dower his 
daughter... Michelangelo built his own scaffold free 
from the walls, inventing a method which was after- 
wards adopted by all architects for vault-building. 
Perhaps he remembered the elaborate drawing he 
once made of Ghirlandajo’s assistants at work upon 
the ladders and wooden platforms at S. Maria 
Novella. 

Knowing that he should need helpers in so great 
an undertaking, and also mistrusting his own ability 
to work in fresco, he now engaged several excel- 
lent Florentine painters. Among these, says Vasari, 
were his friends Francesco Granacci and Giuliano 
Bugiardini, Bastiano da San Gallo surnamed Aris- 
totele, Angelo di Donnino, Jacopo di Sandro, and 
Jacopo surnamed |’Indaco. Vasari is probably ac- 
curate in his statement here ; for we shall see that 
Michelangelo, in his Ricordi, makes mention of five 
assistants, two of whom are proved by other docu- 
ments to have been Granacci and Indaco. We also 


1 The above facts about the scaffold are related by Vasari, xii. 189. 
A payment for rope under date October 13, 1508, has been recently 
edited (Arch. Stor., Ser. terza, vi. 187); but its amount does not seem 
to confirm the story of the dowry. 


202 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


possess two letters from Granacci which show that 
Bugiardini, San Gallo, Angelo di Donnino, and 
Jacopo l'Indaco were engaged in July.1 The 
second of Granacci’s letters refers to certain dis- 
putes and hagglings with the artists. This may 
have brought Michelangelo to Florence, for he was 
there upon the 11th of August 1508, as appears 
from the following deed of renunciation: “In the 
year of our Lord 1508, on the 11th day of August, 
Michelangelo, son of Lodovico di Lionardo di Buon- 
arrota, repudiated the inheritance of his uncle Fran- 
cesco by an instrument drawn up by the hand of 
Ser Giovanni di Guasparre da Montevarchi, notary 
of Florence, on the 27th of July 1508.”? When 
the assistants arrived at Rome is not certain. It 
must, however, have been after the end of July.’ 
The extracts from Michelangelo’s notebooks show 
that he had already sketched an agreement as to 
wages several weeks before.* ‘I record how on this 
day, the 10th of May 1508, I, Michelangelo, sculptor, 
have received from the Holiness of our Lord Pope 
Julius II. 500 ducats of the Camera, the which were 
paid me by Messer Carlino, chamberlain, and Messer 
Carlo degli Albizzi, on account of the painting of 


1 These letters, dated July 22 and 24, at Florence, are in the Arch. 
Buon., and are translated by Heath Wilson, p. 125. 

2 Gotti, i. 70, note. Heath Wilson, 127, note, says that he took 
legal opinion as to whether Michelangelo must have been at Florence 
for this protocol, and was informed that he must. 

3 See Letters from Granacci, quoted above, 

4 Lettere, Ricordt, p. 563. 


COMMENCEMENT OF THE VAULT. 203 


the vault of the Sistine Chapel, on which I begin to 
work to-day, under the conditions and contracts set 
forth in a document written by his Most Reverend 
Lordship of Pavia, and signed by my hand. 

“For the painter-assistants who are to come from 
Florence, who will be five in number, twenty gold 
ducats of the Camera apiece, on this condition ; that 
_ Is to say, that when they are here and are working 
in harmony with me, the twenty ducats shall be 
reckoned to each man’s salary; the said salary to 
begin upon the day they leave Florence. And if 
they do not agree with me, half of the said money 
shall be paid them for their travelling expenses, and 
for their time.” 

On the strength of this Ricordo, it has been 
assumed that Michelangelo actually began to paint 
the Sistine on the roth of May 1508. That would 
have been physically and literally impossible. He 
was still at Florence, agreeing to rent his house in 
Borgo Pinti, upon the 18th of March. Therefore he 
had no idea of going to Rome at that time. When 
he arrived there, negotiations went on, as we have 
seen, between him and Pope Julius. One plan for 
the decoration of the roof was abandoned, and 
another on a grander scale had to be designed. To 
produce working Cartoons for that immense scheme 
in less than two months would have been beyond 
the capacities of any human brain and hands. But 
there are many indications that the vault was not 
prepared for painting, and the materials for fresco 


204 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


not accumulated, till a much later date. For in- 
stance, we possess a series of receipts by Piero Ros- 
selli, acknowledging several disbursements for the 
plastering of the roof between May 11 and July ° 
27.. We learn from one of these that Granacci 
was in Rome before June 3; and Michelangelo 
writes for fine blue colours to a certain Fra Jacopo 
Gesuato at Florence upon the 13th of May.? All is 
clearly in the air as yet, and on the point of pre- 
paration. Michelangelo’s phrase, ‘on which I begin 
to work to-day,” will have to be interpreted, there- 
fore, in the widest sense, as implying that he was 
engaging assistants, getting the architectural foun- 
dation ready, and procuring a stock of necessary 
articles. The whole summer and autumn must have 
been spent in taking measurements and expanding 
the elaborate design to the proper scale of working 
drawings; and if Michelangelo had toiled alone 
without his Florentine helpers, it would have been 
impossible for him to have got through with these 
preliminary labours in so short a space of time. 
Michelangelo’s method in preparing his Cartoons 
seems to have been the following. He first made a 
small-scale sketch of the composition, sometimes in- 
cluding a large variety of figures. Then he went to 
the living models, and studied portions of the whole 
design in careful transcripts from Nature, using 
black and red chalk, pen, and sometimes bistre. 
Among the most admirable of his drawings left to 
1 Lettere, p. 563. 4 Lettere, No. cecxliv, 





PREPARATION OF CARTOONS. 205 


us are several which were clearly executed with a 
view to one or other of these great Cartoons. Finally, 
returning to the first composition, he repeated that, 
or so much of it as could be transferred to a single 
sheet, on the exact scale of the intended fresco. 
These enlarged drawings were applied to the wet 
surface of the plaster, and their outlines pricked in 
with dots to guide the painter in his brush-work. 
When we reflect upon the extent of the Sistine vault 
(it is estimated at more than 10,000 square feet of 
surface), and the difficulties presented by its curves, 
lunettes, spandrels, and pendentives; when we re- 
member that this enormous space is alive with 343 
figures in every conceivable attitude, some of them 
twelve feet in height, those seated as prophets and 
sibyls measuring nearly eighteen feet when upright, 
all animated with extraordinary vigour, presenting 
types of the utmost variety and vivid beauty, imagi- 
nation quails before the intellectual energy which 
could first conceive a scheme so complex, and then 
carry it out with mathematical precision in its 
minutest details.’ 

The date on which Michelangelo actually began 

1 A very full account of the measurements of the Sistine and of 
Michelangelo’s method is given by Heath Wilson, chap. vi. In some 
respects it forms the most valuable part of that excellent and hitherto 
by far too much neglected work. Heath Wilson enjoyed the singular 
privilege of making a close examination of the roof; and what he says 
about the execution of the frescoes and their present state deserves to 
be most attentively studied. He has dispelled many illusions; as, 


for instance, the old tradition that Michelangelo worked in absolute 
isolation. 





206 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


to paint the fresco is not certain. Supposing he 
worked hard all the summer, he might have done 
so when his Florentine assistants arrived in August; 
and, assuming that the letter to his father above 
quoted (Lettere, x.) bears a right date, he must 
have been in full swing before the end of January 
1509. In that letter he mentions that Jacopo, 
probably I’Indaco, ‘the painter whom I brought 
from Florence, returned a few days ago; and as he 
complained about me here in Rome, it is likely 
that he will do so there. Turn a deaf ear to him; 
he is a thousandfold in the wrong, and I could say 
much about his bad behaviour toward me.” Vasari 
informs us that these assistants proved of no use; 
whereupon, he destroyed all they had begun to do, 
refused to see them, locked himself up in the chapel, 
and determined to complete the work in solitude. 
It seems certain that the painters were sent back 
to Florence. Michelangelo had already provided for 
the possibility of their not being able to co-operate 
with him ;? but what the cause of their failure was 
we can only conjecture. ‘Trained in the methods 
of the old Florentine school of fresco-painting, in- 
capable of entering into the spirit of a style so 
supereminently noble and so astoundingly original 
as Michelangelo’s, it is probable that they spoiled 
his designs in their attempts to colour them. Har-— 
ford pithily remarks:* ‘“‘As none of the suitors of 


1 Vasari, xii, 190. 2 See Ricordo quoted above, p. 203. 
3 Harford, vol. i. p. 259. 


TROUBLES WITH ASSISTANTS. 207 


Penelope could bend the bow of Ulysses, so one 
_ hand alone was capable of wielding the pencil of 
Buonarroti.” Still it must not be imagined that 
Michelangelo ground his own colours, prepared his 
daily measure of wet plaster, and executed the whole 
series of frescoes with his own hand. Condivi and 
Vasari imply, indeed, that this was the case; but, 
beside the physical impossibility, the fact remains 
that certain portions are obviously executed by inferior 
masters.! Vasari’s anecdotes, moreover, contradict his 
own assertion regarding Michelangelo's single-handed 
labour. He speaks about the caution which the 
master exercised to guard himself against any treason 
of his workmen in the chapel.2 Nevertheless, far the 
larger part, including all the most important figures, 
and especially the nudes, belongs to Michelangelo. 

These troubles with his assistants illustrate a 
point upon which I shall have to offer some con- | 
siderations at a future time. I allude to Michel- 
angelo’s inaptitude for forming a school of intelli- 
gent fellow-workers, for fashioning inferior natures 
into at least a sympathy with his aims and methods, 
and finally for living long on good terms with hired | 
subordinates. All those qualities which the facile 
and genial Raffaello possessed in such abundance, 
and which made it possible for that young favourite 
of heaven and fortune to fill Rome with so much | 
work of mixed merit, were wanting to the stern, 
exacting, and sensitive Buonarroti. 

1 See Heath Wilson, p. 155. 2 Vasari, xii. 185. 


208 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


But the assistants were not the only hindrance 
to Michelangelo at the outset. Condivi says that’ 
“he had hardly begun painting, and had finished 
the picture of the Deluge, when the work began 
to throw out mould to such an extent that the 
figures could hardly be seen through it. Michel- 
angelo thought that this excuse might be sufficient 
to get him relieved of the whole job. So he went 
to the Pope and said: ‘I already told your Holiness 
that painting is not my trade; what I have done 
is spoiled ; if you do not believe it, send to see.’ 
The Pope sent San Gallo, who, after inspecting the 
fresco, pronounced that the lime-basis had been put 
on too wet, and that water oozing out produced 
this mouldy surface.2 He told Michelangelo what 
the cause was, and bade him proceed with the work. 
So the excuse helped him nothing.” About the 
fresco of the Deluge Vasari relates that, having 
begun to paint this compartment first, he noticed 
that the figures were too crowded, and consequently 
changed his scale in all the other portions of the 
ceiling. This is a plausible explanation of what 
is striking—namely, that the story of the Deluge 
is quite differently planned from the other episodes 
upon the vaulting. Yet I think it must be rejected, 
because it implies a total change in all the working 
cartoons, as well as a remarkable want of foresight. 


1 Condivi, p. 39. 
2 Heath Wilson (p. 141) says the plaster was made of Roman lime 
and marble dust. 


ysluyD JO Ssojsaouy 


Ancestors of Christ 





The Drunkenness 
of Noah 







The Deluge 








Erythraean 


: Noah's Sacrifice 
t_ Sibyl 


Isaiah 







The fall of Adam & Eve 
their expulsion from Paradise 








Cumaean 





Ezechiel |The Creation of Eve 








The Creation of Adam 






The Spirit of God Daniel 
upon the Waters ects 


The Creation of Sun, Moon | 


vegetation on the Earth 










The Last Judgment 


usr) po}eos 
JO} sjeysopeg” ~~ 
Pedestals for __ 
seated Genii 


Ancestors of Christ 


PLAN SHOWING THE SCHEME FOR PAINTING THE VAULT 


OF THE SISTINE CHAPEL. 





FIRST HALF OF THE VAULT FINISHED. 209 


Condivi continues: ‘‘ While he was painting, 
Pope Julius used oftentimes to go and see the 
work, climbing by a ladder, while Michelangelo 
gave him a hand to help him on to the platform. 
His nature being eager and impatient of delay, 
he decided to have the roof uncovered, although 
Michelangelo had not given the last touches, and 
had only completed the first half—that is, from the 
door to the middle of the vault.” Michelangelo’s 
letters show that the first part of his work was exe- 
cuted in October. He writes thus to his brother 
Buonarroto:! “I am remaining here as usual, and 
shall have finished my painting by the end of the 
week after next—that is, the portion of it which I 
began; and when it is uncovered, I expect to be 
paid, and shall also try to get a month’s leave to 
visit Florence.” 


V. 


The uncovering took place upon November 1, 
1509. All Rome flocked to the chapel, feeling that 
something stupendous was to be expected after the 
long months of solitude and seclusion during which 
the silent master had been working. Nor were 
they disappointed. The effect produced by only 
half of the enormous scheme was overwhelming. 


1 Lettere, No. ]xxxi. 
VOL. I. a) 


210 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


As Vasari says,’ “This chapel lighted up a lamp 
for our art which casts abroad lustre enough to 
illuminate the world, drowned for so many centuries 
in darkness.” Painters saw at a glance that the 
genius which had revolutionised sculpture was now 
destined to introduce a new style and spirit into 
their art. This was the case even with Raffaello, 
who, in the frescoes he executed at S. Maria della 
Pace, showed his immediate willingness to learn 
from Michelangelo, and his determination to compete 
with him. Condivi and Vasari are agreed upon 
this point, and Michelangelo himself, in a moment 
of hasty indignation, asserted many years afterwards 
that what Raffaello knew of art was derived from 
him.” That is, of course, an over-statement; for, 
beside his own exquisite originality, Raffaello | 
formed a composite style successively upon Perugino, | 
Fra Bartolommeo, and Lionardo. He was capable | 
not merely of imitating, but of absorbing and assimi- 
lating to his lucid genius the excellent qualities of | 
all in whom he recognised superior talent. At the 
same time, Michelangelo’s influence was undeniable, 
and we cannot ignore the testimony of those who 
conversed with both great artists—of Julius himself, 
for instance, when he said to Sebastian del Piombo :? 
“Look at the work of Raffaello, who, after seeing 
the masterpieces of Michelangelo, immediately aban- 


1 Vasari, xi, 193. 2 Lettere, No. cdxxxv. 
3 See Sebastiano del Piombo’s letter of October 15, 1512, printed in 
Gaye, vol, ll. p. 487. 





WHAT THE FIRST HALF WAS. 211 


doned Perugino’s manner, and did his utmost to 
approach that of Buonarroti.” 

Condivi’s assertion that the part uncovered in 
November 1509 was the first half of the whole vault, 
beginning from the door and ending in the middle, 
misled Vasari, and Vasari misled subsequent bio- 
graphers. We now know for certain that what 
Michelangelo meant by ‘“‘the portion I began” was 
the whole central space of the ceiling—that is to 
say, the nine compositions from Genesis, with their 
accompanying genii and architectural surroundings. 
That is rendered clear by a statement in Albertini’s 
Roman Handbook, to the effect that the ‘upper 
portion of the whole vaulted roof’’ had been un- 
covered when he saw it in 1509." Having established 
this error in Condivi’s narrative, what he proceeds 
to relate may obtain some credence. “ Raffaello, 
when he beheld the new and marvellous style of 
Michelangelo’s work, being extraordinarily apt at 
imitation, sought, by Bramante’s means, to obtain 
a commission for the rest.” Had Michelangelo 
ended at a line drawn halfway across the breadth 
of the vault, leaving the Prophets and Sibyls, the 
lunettes and pendentives, all finished so far, it would 
have been a piece of monstrous impudence even in 
Bramante, and an impossible discourtesy in gentle 
Raffaello, to have begged for leave to carry on a 
scheme so marvellously planned. But the history 


1 Albertini, Mirabilia Urbis, quoted by Grimm, vel i. p. 523. 
Albertini’s own words are pars testudinea supertor. 


212 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


of the Creation, Fall, and Deluge, when first exposed, 
looked like a work complete in itself. Michelangelo, 
who was notoriously secretive, had almost certainly 
not explained his whole design to painters of Bra- 
mante’s following; and it is also improbable that 
he had as yet prepared his working Cartoons for 
the lower and larger portion of the vault." Accord- 

ingly, there remained a large vacant space to cover 
between the older frescoes by Signorelli, Perugino, 
Botticelli, and other painters, round the walls below 
the windows, and that new miracle suspended in the 
air. There was no flagrant impropriety in Bramante’s 
thinking that his nephew might be allowed to 
carry the work downward from that altitude. The 
suggestion may have been that the Sistine Chapel 
should become a Museum of Italian art, where all 
painters of eminence could deposit proofs of their 
ability, until each square foot of wall was covered 
with competing masterpieces. But when Michel- 
angelo heard of Bramante’s intrigues, he was greatly © 
disturbed in spirit. Having begun his task unwill- 
ingly, he now felt an equal or greater unwillingness 
to leave the stupendous conception of his brain 
unfinished. Against all expectation of himself and 
others, he had achieved a decisive victory, and was 
placed at one stroke, as Condivi says, “‘ above the 
reach of envy.” His hand had found its cunning 


1 [t may be inferred, I think, from a passage in Lettere, No. ccclxxxiii. 
that Michelangelo only began the Cartoons for the second portion of 
the Sistine in 1510. - 


BRAMANTE’S INTRIGUES. 213 


for fresco as for marble. Why should he be inter- 
rupted in the full swing of triumphant energy! 
“Accordingly, he sought an audience with the 
Pope, and openly laid bare all the persecutions he 
had suffered from Bramante, and discovered the 
numerous misdoings of the man.” It was on this 
occasion, according to Condivi, that Michelangelo 
exposed Bramante’s scamped work and vandalism 
at S. Peter’s. Julius, who was perhaps the only 
man in Rome acquainted with his sculptor’s scheme 
for the Sistine vault, brushed the cobwebs of these 
petty intrigues aside, and left the execution of the 
whole to Michelangelo. 

There is something ignoble in the task of record- 
ing rivalries and jealousies between artists and men 
of letters. Genius, however, like all things that 
are merely ours and mortal, shuffles along the path 
of life, half flying on the wings of inspiration, half 
hobbling on the feet of interest, the crutches of com- 
missions. Michelangelo, although he made the David 
and the Sistine, had also to make money. He was 
entangled with shrewd men of business, and crafty 
spendthrifts, ambitious intriguers, folk who used 
undoubted talents, each in its kind excellent and 
pure, for baser purposes of gain or getting on. The 
art-life of Rome seethed with such blood-poison ; 
and it would be sentimental to neglect what entered 
so deeply and so painfully into the daily experience 
of our hero. Raflaello, kneaded of softer and more 
facile clay than Michelangelo, throve in this environ- 


214 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


ment, and was somehow able—so it seems—to turn 
its venom to sweet uses. I like to think of the two 
peers, moving like stars on widely separated orbits, 
with radically diverse temperaments, proclivities, and 
habits, through the turbid atmosphere enveloping 
but not obscuring their lucidity. Hach, in his own 
way, as it seems to me, contrived to keep himself 
unspotted by the world ; and if they did not under- 
stand one another and make friends, this was due to 
the different conceptions they were framed to take 
of life, the one being the exact antipodes to the 
other.’ 


VI. 


Postponing descriptive or esthetic criticism of the 
Sistine frescoes, I shall proceed with the narration 
of their gradual completion. 

We have few documents to guide us through 
the period of time which elapsed between the first 


1 Raffaello ardently loved women. Michelangelo, so far as we know, 
was insensible to their attraction. Raffaello enjoyed society, and took 
innocent pleasure in personal magnificence. Michelangelo preferred 
solitude, and lived sordidly. Raffaello burned out in a few brilliant 
years, dying at the age of Byron and Mozart. Michelangelo grew to 
be a tough old man of nearly ninety, preserving the fire of his tempera- 
ment to the end. Raffaello sunned himself in the gladness of existence. 
Michelangelo walked in the shade. The one was genial and Lebens 
lustig ; the other, melancholic and surcharged with Innigkett. Raffaello 
revelled in the facile and sensuous externalisation of ideas. Michel- 
angelo grappled with intensest problems both of thought and plastie 
presentation. 


THE SECOND HALF OF THE VAULT. 215 


uncovering of Michelangelo’s work on the roof of the 
Sistine (November 1, 1509) and its ultimate accom- 
plishment (October 1512). His domestic correspond 
ence is abundant, and will be used in its proper 
place; but nothing transpires from those pages of 
affection, anger, and financial negotiation to throw 
light upon the working of the master’s mind while 
he was busied in creating the sibyls and prophets, 
the episodes and idyls, which carried his great Bible 
of the Fate of Man downwards through the vaulting 
to a point at which the Last Judgment had to be 
presented as a crowning climax. For the anxious 
student of his mind and life-work, nothing is more 
desolating than the impassive silence he maintains 
about his doings as an artist. He might have told 
us all we want to know, and never shall know here 
about them. But while he revealed his personal 
temperament and his passions with singular frank- 
ness, he locked up the secret of his art, and said 
nothing. 

Eventually we must endeavour to grasp Michel- 
angelo’s work in the Sistine as a whole, although it 
was carried out at distant epochs of his life. For 
this reason I have thrown these sentences forward, 
in order to embrace a wide span of his artistic 
energy (from May 10, 1508, to perhaps December 
1541). There is, to my mind, a unity of concep- 
tion between the history depicted on the vault, the 
prophets and forecomers on the pendentives, the 
types selected for the spandrels, and the final spec- 


216 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


tacle of the day of doom. Living, as he needs must 
do, under the category of time, Michelangelo was 
unable to execute his stupendous picture-book of 
human destiny in one sustained manner. Years 
passed over him of thwarted endeavour and dis- 
tracted energies—years of quarrying and sculptur- 
ing, of engineering and obeying the vagaries of 
successive Popes. Therefore, when he came at last 
to paint the Last Judgment, he was a worn man, 
exhausted in services of many divers sorts. And, 
what is most perplexing to the reconstructive critic, 
nothing in his correspondence remains to indicate 
the stages of his labour. The letters tell plenty 
about domestic anxieties, annoyances in his poor 
craftsman’s household, purchases of farms, indignant 
remonstrances with stupid brethren ; but we find in 
them, as I have said, no clue to guide us through 
that mental labyrinth in which the supreme artist 
was continually walking, and at the end of which 
he left to us the Sistine as it now is. 


VIL. 


The old reckoning of the time consumed by 
Michelangelo in painting the roof of the Sistine, 
and the traditions concerning his mode of work 
there, are clearly fabulous. Condivi says: “He 
finished the whole in twenty months, without hay- 


TIME SPENT ON THE VAULT. 217 


ing any assistance whatsoever, not even of a man to 
grind his colours.” From a letter of September 7, 
1510, we learn that the scaffolding was going to 
be put up again, and that he was preparing to work 
upon the lower portion of the vaulting.’ Nearly 
two years elapse before we hear of it again. He 
writes to Buonarroto on the 24th of July 1512: “I 
am suffering greater hardships than ever man en- 
dured, ill, and with overwhelming labour; still I 
put up with all in order to reach the desired end.” 
Another letter on the 21st of August shows that 
he expects to complete his work at the end of 
September; and at last, in October, he writes to 
his father:* “I have finished the chapel I was 
painting. The Pope is very well satisfied.” On 
the calculation that he began the first part on May 
10, 1508, and finished the whole in October 1512, 
four years and a half were employed upon the work. 
A considerable part of this time was of course taken 
up with the preparation of Cartoons; and the nature 
of fresco-painting rendered the winter months not 
always fit for active labour. The climate of Rome 
is not so mild but that wet plaster might often freeze 
and crack during December, January, and February. 
Besides, with all his superhuman energy, Michel- 
angelo could not have painted straight on daily 
without rest or stop. It seems, too, that the 


1 Lettere, No, xxi. 2 Lettere, No. lxxxvii. 
$ Lettere, Nos. lxxxix., xv. Milanesi dates the second in 1509, but 
he is wrong, I think, 


218 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


master was often in need of money, and that he 
made two journeys to the Pope to beg for supplies. 
In the letter to Fattucci he says:* ‘“‘When the 
vault was nearly finished, the Pope was again at 
Bologna ;? whereupon, I went twice to get the 
necessary funds, and obtained nothing, and lost all 
that time until I came back to Rome. When I 
reached Rome, I began to make Cartoons—that 
is, for the ends and sides of the said chapel, 
hoping to get money at last and to complete the 
work. I never could extract a farthing; and when I 
complained one day to Messer Bernardo da Bibbiena 
and to Atalante,® representing that I could not stop 
longer in Rome, and that I should be forced to 
go away with God’s grace, Messer Bernardo told 
Atalante he must bear this in mind, for that he 
wished me to have money, whatever happened.” 
When we consider, then, the magnitude of the 
undertaking, the arduous nature of the preparatory 


1 Lettere, No. ceclxxxiii. 

2 The date of one of these visits, which may have taken Michelangelo 
as far as the Pope’s camp before Mirandola, is fixed by a letter of 
January 11, 1511, to Buonarroto (Lettere, No. lxxxiv.). The date of 
the other is uncertain. See Grimm, vol. i. p. 389. Among the few 
documents which throw light upon Michelangelo’s movements at this 
period is an inedited letter from Agnolo Manfido, State-herald in 
Florence, to the sculptor in Rome, dated November 2, 1510, and ex- 
pressing pleasure at hearing the news of his safe arrival. Arch. Buon., 
Cod. ix. No. 506. 

3 Bibbiena is the Cardinal Dovizi, and famous author of the 
Calandra, Atalante was a natural son of Manetto Migliorotti, a 
Florentine, who learned to play on the lute from Lionardo da Vinci. 
He occupied a post in the Fabric of S. Peter’s between 1513 and 1516, 
See Milanesi, Lettere, p. 428, note. 


er sd 
a a a ee he 


THE FRESCOES LEFT UNFINISHED. 219 


studies, and the waste of time in journeys and 
through other hindrances, four and a half years are 
not too long a period for a man working so much 
alone as Michelangelo was wont to do. 

We have reason to believe that, after all, the 
frescoes of the Sistine were not finished in their 
details. “It is true,’ continues Condivi, “ that 
I have heard him say he was not suffered to com- 
plete the work according to his wish. The Pope, 
in his impatience, asked him one day when he 
would be ready with the Chapel, and he answered : 
‘When I shall be able. To which his Holiness 
replied in a rage: ‘You want to make me hurl 
you from that scaffold!’ Michelangelo heard and 
remembered, muttering: ‘That you shall not do 
tome.’ So he went straightway, and had the scaf- 
folding taken down. ‘The frescoes were exposed to 
view on All Saints’ day,’ to the great satisfaction 
of the Pope, who went that day to service there, 
while all Rome flocked together to admire them. 
What Michelangelo felt forced to leave undone was 
the retouching of certain parts with ultramarine 
upon dry ground, and also some gilding, to give the 
whole a richer effect. Giulio, when his heat cooled 
down, wanted Michelangelo to make these last 
additions; but he, considering the trouble it 
would be to build up all that scaffolding afresh, 
observed that what was missing mattered little. 


1 Condivi is here, as elsewhere, mixing up the first with the second 
portion of the work. 


220 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


‘You ought at least to touch it up with gold,’ 
replied the Pope; and Michelangelo, with that 
familiarity he used toward his Holiness, said care- 
lessly: ‘I have not observed that men wore gold.’ 
The Pope rejoined: ‘It will look poor.’ Buonar- 
roti added: ‘Those who are painted there were 
poor men.’* Sothe matter turned into pleasantry, — 
and the frescoes have remained in their present 
state.’ Condivi goes on to state that Michelangelo 
received 3000 ducats for all his expenses, and that 
he spent as much as twenty or twenty-five ducats 
on colours alone. Upon the difficult question of 
the moneys earned by the great artist in his life- 
work, I shall have to speak hereafter, though I 
doubt whether any really satisfactory account can 
now be given of them. 


VIII. 


Michelangelo’s letters to his family in Florence 
throw a light at once vivid and painful over the 
circumstances of his life during these years of 
sustained creative energy. He was uncomfortable 
in his bachelor’s home, and always in difficulties 


1 Michelangelo, in the letter to Fattucci (see Appendix), refers this 
repartee to the first period of his work upon the Sistine. It was 
characteristic of the man to leave the frescoes without ornament, and 
perhaps without the final finish he had planned. 


DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES. 221 


with his servants. ‘I am living here in discontent, 
not thoroughly well, and undergoing great fatigue, 
without money, and with no one to look after me.” * 
Again, when one of his brothers proposed to visit 
him in Rome, he writes: ? ‘I hear that Gismondo 
means to come hither on his affairs. Tell him 
not to count on me for anything; not because I 
do not love him as a brother, but because I am not 
in the position to assist him. I am bound to care 
for myself first, and I cannot provide myself with 
necessaries. I live here in great distress and the 
utmost bodily fatigue, have no friends, and seek 
none. J have not even time enough to eat what I 
require. Therefore let no additional burdens be 
put upon me, for I could not bear another ounce.” 
In the autumn of 1509 he corresponded with his 
father about the severe illness of an assistant work- 
man whom he kept, and also about a boy he wanted 
sent from Florence. ‘I should be glad if you 
could hear of some lad at Florence, the son of good 
parents and poor, used to hardships, who would be 
willing to come and live with me here, to do the 
work of the house, buy what I want, and go around 
on messages; in his leisure time he could learn. 
Should such a boy be found, please let me know; 
because there are only rogues here, and I am 
1 Lettere, No. v., date June 1508. 
2 Lettere, No. lxxx., October 17, 1509. 


3 Lettere, Nos. ix., xviii., xix. Milanesi dates No. ix. November 5, 
1508; but it is clearly in connection with the other two, dated 


January 1510. 


222 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


in great need of some one.” All through his life, 
Michelangelo adopted the plan of keeping a young 
fellow to act as general servant, and at the same 
time to help in art-work. Three of these servants 
are interwoven with the chief events of his later 
years, Pietro Urbano, Antonio Mini, and Francesco 
d’Amadore, called Urbino, the last of whom became | 
his faithful and attached friend till death parted 
them. "Women about the house he could not bear. 
Of the serving-maids at Rome he says:* “They are 
all strumpets and swine.” Well, it seems that 
Lodovico found a boy, and sent him off to Rome. 
What followed is related in the next letter. ‘As 
regards the boy you sent me, that rascal of a mule- 
teer cheated me out of a ducat for his journey. 
He swore that the bargain had been made for two 
broad golden ducats, whereas all the lads who come 
here with the muleteers pay only ten carlins. I 
was more angry at this than if I had lost twenty- 
five ducats, because I saw that his father had re- 
solved to send him on mule-back like a gentleman. 
Oh, I had never such good luck, not I! Then 
both the father and the lad promised that he would 
do everything, attend to the mule, and sleep upon 
the ground, if it was wanted. And now I am obliged 
to look after him. As if I needed more worries 
than the one I have had ever since I arrived here! 
My apprentice, whom I left in Rome, has been ill 
from the day on which I returned until now. It 


1 Lettere, No, ccxxxy, 


THE BOY FROM FLORENCE. 223 


is true that he is getting better; but he lay for 
about a month in peril of his life, despaired of by 
the doctors, and I never went to bed. ‘There are 
other annoyances of my own; and now I have the 
nuisance of this lad, who says that he does not 
want to waste time, that he wants to study, and 
so on. At Florence he said he would be satisfied 
with two or three hours a day. Now the whole 
day is not enough for him, but he must needs be 
drawing all the night. It is all the fault of what 
his father tells him. If I complained, he would 
say that I did not want him to learn. [I really 
require some one to take care of the house; and if 
the boy had no mind for this sort of work, they 
ought not to have put me to expense. But they 
are good-for-nothing, and are working toward a 
certain end of their own. Enough, I beg you to 
relieve me of the boy; he has bored me so that I 
cannot bear it any longer. The muleteer has been 
so well paid that he can very well take him back 
to Florence. Besides, he is a friend of the father. 
Tell the father to send for him home. I shall not 
pay another farthing. I have no money. I will 
have patience till he sends; and if he does not 
send, I will turn the boy out of doors. I did 
so already on the second day of his arrival, and 
other times also, and the father does not believe 
it. 

“ P.S.—If you talk to the father of the lad, put 
the matter to him nicely: as that he is a good boy, 


224 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


but too refined, and not fit for my service, and say 
that he had better send for him home.” 

The repentant postscript is eminently character- 
istic of Michelangelo. He used to write in haste, 
apparently just as the thoughts came. Afterwards 
he read his letter over, and softened its contents 
down, if he did not, as sometimes happened, feel that. 
his meaning required enforcement; in that case he 
added a stinging tail to the epigram. How little he 
could manage the people in his employ is clear from 
the last notice we possess about the unlucky lad from 
Florence. ‘I wrote about the boy, to say that his 
father ought to send for him, and that I would not 
disburse more money. This I now confirm. The 
driver is paid to take him back. At Florence he 
will do well enough, learning his trade and dwelling 
with his parents. Here he is not worth a farthing, 
and makes me toil like a beast of burden; and my 
other apprentice has not left his bed. It is true 
that I have not got him in the house; for when 
I was so tired out that I could not bear it, I sent 
him to the room of a brother of his. I have no 
money.” 

These household difficulties were a trifle, how- 
ever, compared with the annoyances caused by the 
stupidity of his father and the greediness of his 
brothers. While living like a poor man in Rome, 
he kept continually thinking of their welfare. The 
letters of this period are full of references to the 
purchase of land, the transmission of cash when it 





G 


ISTINE CEILIN 


S 


STUDIES— 


THREE 





tee Se aaa - 


LETTER TO GIOVAN SIMONE. 225 


was to be had, and the establishment of Buonarroto 
in a draper’s business. They, on their part, were 
never satisfied, and repaid his kindness with in- 
eratitude. The following letter to Giovan Simone 
shows how terrible Michelangelo could be when he 
detected baseness in a brother :*— 


‘““GIovAN SIMONE,—It is said that when one does 
good to a good man, he makes him become better, 
but that a bad man becomes worse. It is now 
many years that I have been endeavouring with 
words and deeds of kindness to bring you to live 
honestly and in peace with your father and the 
rest of us. You grow continually worse. I do 
not say that you are a scoundrel; but you are of 
such sort that you have ceased to give satisfac- 
tion to me or anybody. I could read you a long 
lesson on your ways of living; but they would 
be idle words, like all the rest that I have wasted. 
To cut the matter short, I will tell you as a fact 
beyond all question that you have nothing in the 
world: what you spend and your house-room, I give 
you, and have given you these many years, for the 
love of God, believing you to be my brother like 
the rest. Now, I am sure that you are not my 
brother, else you would not threaten my father. 
Nay, you are a beast; and as a beast [ mean to 
treat you. Know that he who sees his father 
threatened or roughly handled is bound to risk his 


1 Lettere, No. cxxvii., date July 1508. 


VOL. I, 


ee 
cect 
eine 


226 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


own life in this cause. Let that suffice. I repeat 
that you have nothing in the world; and if I hear 
the least thing about your ways of going on, I will 
come to Florence by the post, and show you how 
far wrong you are, and teach you to waste your 
substance, and set fire to houses and farms you have 
not earned. Indeed you are not where you think 
yourself to be. If I come, I will open your eyes — 
to what will make you weep hot tears, and recognise 
on what false grounds you base your arrogance. 

‘“‘T have something else to say to you, which I have 
said before. If you will endeavour to live rightly, 
and to honour and revere your father, I am willing 
to help you like the rest, and will put it shortly 
within your power to open a good shop. If you 
act otherwise, I shall come and settle your affairs 
in such a way that you will recognise what you are 
better than you ever did, and will know what you 
have to call your own, and will have it shown to 
you in every place where you may go. No more. 
What I lack in words IT will supply with deeds. 


‘¢ MICHELANGELO in Rome. 


“T cannot refrain from adding a couple of lines. 
It is as follows. I have gone these twelve years 
past drudging about through Italy, borne every 
shame, suffered every hardship, worn my body out 
in every toil, put my life to a thousand hazards, and 
all with the sole purpose of helping the fortunes of 
my family. Now that I have begun to raise it up 





LETTER TO BUONARROTO. 227 


a little, you only, you alone, choose to destroy and 
bring to ruin in one hour what it has cost me so 
many years and such labour to build up. By Christ’s 
body this shall not be; for I am the man to put to 
the rout ten thousand of your sort, whenever it be 
needed. Be wise in time, then, and do not try the 
patience of one who has other things to vex him.” ?} 

Even Buonarroto, who was the best of the brothers 
and dearest to his heart, hurt him by his grasping- 
ness and want of truth. He had been staying at 
Rome on a visit, and when he returned to Florence 
it appears that he bragged about his wealth, as if 
the sums expended on the Buonarroti farms were 
not part of Michelangelo’s earnings. The conse- 
quence was that he received a stinging rebuke 
from his elder brother. ‘The said Michele told me 
you mentioned to him having spent about sixty 
ducats at Settignano. I remember your saying here 
too at table that you had disbursed a large sum out 
of your own pocket. I pretended not to under- 
stand, and did not feel the least surprise, because 
I know you. I should like to hear from your in- 
gratitude out of what money you gained them. If 

1 Passerini (in Gotti, ii. 19) thinks that this letter drove Giovan 
Simone abroad. He went, it seems, to Lisbon, intending to take ship 
for the Indies. However, he was back again in 1512, and set up busi- 
ness with Buonarroto, 

? Lettere, No, xcii., date July 30, 1513. It must be said, in a spirit 
of equity to Michelangelo’s family, that suspiciousness formed a strong 
element in his character. The letter quoted above seems to be an 


instance of this failing. As usual there were faults upon both sides 
in these domestic rubs, 


228 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


you had enough sense to know the truth, you would 
not say: ‘I spent so and so much of my own;’ also 
you would not have come here to push your affairs 
with me, seeing how I have always acted toward you 
in the past, but would have rather said: ‘ Michel- 
angelo remembers what he wrote to us, and if he 
does not now do what he promised, he must be pre- 
vented by something of which we are ignorant,’ and 
then have kept your peace ; because it is not well 
to spur the horse that runs as fast as he is able, and 
more than he is able. But you have never known 
me, and do not know me. God pardon you; for 
it is He who granted me the grace to bear what 
I do bear and have borne, in order that you might 
be helped. Well, you will know me when you 
have lost me.” 

Michelangelo’s angry moods rapidly cooled down. 
At the bottom of his heart lay a deep and abiding 
love for his family. There is something caressing 
in the tone with which he replies to grumbling 
letters from his father." ‘Do not vex yourself. 
God did not make us to abandon us.” “If you 
want me, I will take the post, and be with you 
in two days. Men are worth more than money.” 
His warm affection transpires even more clearly in 
the two following documents:* “I should like 
you to be thoroughly convinced that all the 


1 Lettere, Nos. xx., xxi., date September 1510. 
2 Lettere, Nos. vii., xxii, dates August 1508, September 15, 1510, 
yoth addressed to Lodovico. 


LETTERS TO LODOVICO. Ae 


labours I have ever undergone have not been 
more for myself than for your sake. What I have 
bought, I bought to be yours so long as you live. 
If you had not been here, I should have bought 
nothing. Therefore, if you wish to let the house 
and farm, do so at your pleasure. This income, 
together with what I shall give you, will enable 
you to live like a lord.” At a time when Lodovico 
was much exercised in his mind and spirits by a 
lawsuit, his son writes to comfort the old man. 
“To not be discomfited, nor give yourself an ounce 
of sadness. Remember that losing money is not 
losing one’s life. I will more than make up to 
you what you must lose. Yet do not attach too 
much value to worldly goods, for they are by nature 
untrustworthy. Thank God that this trial, if it 
was bound to come, came at a time when you have 
more resources than you had in years past. Look 
to preserving your life and health, but let your 
fortunes go to ruin rather than suffer hardships ; for 
I would sooner have you alive and poor; if you 
were dead, I should not care for all the gold in 
the world. If those chatterboxes or any one else 
reprove you, let them talk, for they are men without 
intelligence and without affection.” 

References to public events are singularly scanty 
in this correspondence. Much as Michelangelo felt 
the woes of Italy—and we know he did so by his 
poems—he talked but little, doing his work daily 
like a wise man all through the dust and din stirred 


230 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


ap by Julius and the League of Cambrai. The 
lights and shadows of Italian experience at that 
time are intensely dramatic. We must not alto- 
gether forget the vicissitudes of war, plague, and 
foreign invasion, which exhausted the country, 
while its greatest men continued to produce im- 
mortal masterpieces. Aldo Manuzio was quietly 
printing his complete edition of Plato, and Michel- 
angelo was transferring the noble figure of a pro- 
phet or a sibyl to the plaster of the Sistine, while 
young Gaston de Foix was dying at the point of 
victory upon the bloody shores of the Ronco. Some- 
times, however, the disasters of his country touched 
Michelangelo so nearly that he had to write or speak 
about them. After the battle of Ravenna, on the 
11th of April 1512, Raimondo de Cardona and his 
Spanish troops brought back the Medici to Florence. 
On their way, the little town of Prato was sacked with 
a barbarity which sent a shudder through the whole 
peninsula. The Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, who 
entered Florence on the 14th of September, estab- 
lished his nephews as despots in the city, and inti- 
midated the burghers by what looked likely to be 
areign of terror. These facts account for the un- 
easy tone of a letter written by Michelangelo to 
Buonarroto.’ Prato had been taken by assault upon 
the 30th of August, and was now prostrate after 
those hideous days of torment, massacre, and out- 
rage indescribable which followed. In these circum- 
1 Lettere, No. xc., date September 5, 1512. 


SACK OF PRATO AND THE MEDICI. 231 


stances Michelangelo advises his family to “ escape 
into a place of safety, abandoning their household 
gear and property ; for life is far more worth than 
money. If they are in need of cash, they may draw 
upon his credit with the Spedalingo of S. Maria 
Novella.’ The constitutional liability to panic which 
must be recognised in Michelangelo emerges at the 
close of the letter. ‘“‘As to public events, do not 
meddle with them either by deed or word. Act as 
though the plague were raging. Be the first to fly.” 
The Buonarroti did not take his advice, but re- 
mained at Florence, enduring agonies of terror. It 
was a time when disaffection toward the Medicean 
princes exposed men to risking life and limb. 
- Rumours reached Lodovico that his son had talked 
imprudently at Rome. He wrote to inquire what 
truth there was in the report, and Michelangelo 
replied :* ‘‘ With regard to the Medici, I have never 
spoken a single word against them, except in the 
way that everybody talks—as, for instance, about the 
sack of Prato; for if the stones could have cried out, 
I think they would have spoken. ‘There have been 
many other things said since then, to which, when 
I heard them, I have answered: ‘If they are really 
acting in this way, they are doing wrong ;’ not that 
I believed the reports; and God grant they are not 
true. About a month ago, some one who makes a 


1 This functionary acted as Michelangelo’s banker, and helped him 
with advice in the purchase of land. 
2 Lettere, No. xxxvi., date October 1512. 


232 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


show of friendship for me spoke very evilly about 
their deeds. I rebuked him, told him that it was 
not well to talk so, and begged him not to do 
so again tome. However, I should like Buonarroto 


~ quietly to find out how the rumour arose of my 


having calumniated the Medici; for if it is some one 
who pretends to be my friend, I ought to be upon 
my guard.” | 

The Buonarroti family, though well affected 
toward Savonarola, were connected by many ties of 
interest and old association with the Medici, and 
were not powerful enough to be the mark of 
violent political persecution. Nevertheless, a fine 
was laid upon them by the newly restored Govern- 
ment. This drew forth the following epistle from 
Michelangelo :*— 


‘DEAREST FaTHER,—Your last informs me how 
things are going on at Florence, though I already 
knew something. We must have patience, commit 
ourselves to God, and repent of our sins; for these 
trials are solely due to them, and more particularly 
to pride and ingratitude. I never conversed with 
a people more ungrateful and puffed up than the 
Florentines. Therefore, if judgment comes, it is 
but right and reasonable. As for the sixty ducats 
you tell me you are fined, I think this a scurvy 
trick, and am exceedingly annoyed. However, we 
must have patience as long as it pleases God. I 


1 Lettere, No. xxxvii., date October 1512. 


THE BUONARROTI ARE FINED. 233 


will write and enclose two lines to Giuliano de’ 
Medici. Read them, and if you like to present 
them to him, do so; you will see whether they 
are likely to be of any use. If not, consider whether 
we can sell our property and go to live elsewhere. 

. Look to your life and health ; and if you can- 


bh share the honours of the land like other burghers, » ¢ 
be contented that bread does not fail you, and live‘ ie | 
well with Christ, and poorly, as Ido here; for I live ¥ 
in a sordid way, regarding neither life nor honours— } 


that is, the world—and suffer the greatest hardships ~ 
and innumerable anxieties and dreads. It is now 
about fifteen years since I had a single hour of well- 
being, and all that I have done has been to help you, 
and you have never recognised this nor believed it. 
God pardon us all! [am ready to go on doing the 
same so long as I live, if only I am able.” 


We have reason to believe that the petition to 
Giuliano proved effectual, for in his next letter he 
congratulates his father upon their being restored to 
favour.’ In the same communication he mentions 
a young Spanish painter whom he knew in Rome, 
and whom he believes to be ill at Florence. This 
was probably the Alonso Berughetta who made a 
copy of the Cartoon for the Battle of Pisa. In July 
1508 Michelangelo wrote twice about a Spaniard 
who wanted leave to study the Cartoon ; first beg- 
ging Buonarroto to procure the keys for him, and 


1 Vettere, No. xxxviiii The phrase is ribenedetic. 


pa 


234 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


afterwards saying that he is glad to hear that the 
permission was refused.” It does not appear certain 
whether this was»the same Alonso; but it is in- 
teresting to find that Michelangelo disliked his 
Cartoon being copied. We also learn from these 
letters that the Battle of Pisa then remained in the 
Sala del Papa.’ 


IX. 


I will conclude this chapter by translating a 
sonnet addressed to Giovanni da Pistoja, in which 
Michelangelo humorously describes the discomforts 
he endured while engaged upon the Sistine.* Con- 
divi tells us that from painting so long in a strained 
attitude, gazing up at the vault, he lost for some 
time the power of reading except when he lifted the 
paper above his head and raised his eyes. Vasari 
corroborates the narrative from his own experience 
in the vast halls of the Medicean palace.’ 


I’ve grown a goitre by dwelling in this den— 
As cats from stagnant streams in Lombardy, 
Or in what other land they hap to be— 

Which drives the belly close beneath the chin : 








1 Lettere, Nos. lxxvi., lxxviil. 

2 At least that is the inference of Milanesi. Lettere, p. 95, note. 

3 Rime; Sonnet, No. v. The autograph has a funny little cari- 
cature upon the margin, showing a man, with protruded stomach and 
head bent back, using his brush upon a surface high above him. 

4 Condivi, p. 41; Vasari, xii, 193. 


SONNET ON THE SISTINE. 


My beard turns up to heaven ; my nape falls in, 
Fixed on my spine: my breast-bone visibly 
Grows like a harp: a rich embroidery 


Bedews my face from brush-drops thick and thin. 


My loins into my paunch like levers grind: 
My buttock like a crupper bears my weight ; 
My feet unguided wander to and fro ; 

In front my skin grows loose and long; behind, 
By bending it becomes more taut and strait ; 
Crosswise I strain me like a Syrian bow: 

Whence false and quaint, I know, 

Must be the fruit of squinting brain and eye; 

For ill can aim the gun that bends awry. 

Come then, Giovanni, try 
To succour my dead pictures and my fame, 
Since foul I fare and painting is my shame. 


235 


CHAPTER VI. 


1. The Sistine Chapel was built in 1473.—Its dimensions.—State of 
the frescoes there before Michelangelo began to paint.—2. Salient 
differences between his manner and that of the fifteenth-century 
masters.—His scheme for the vault.—The subjects of nine central 
pictures.—Prophets and sibyls.—Four types of God’s mercy to 
mankind.—The ancestors of Christ.—Genii and decorative nude 
figures.—3. Michelangelo confined himself to an architectural 
framework and a host of human figures.—Donatello and Signorelli, 
—4. Signorelli’s frescoes in the Cappella di S. Brizio at Orvieto.— 
The strong similarity of his temperament and artistic ideals to 
those of BuonarrotiimEmployment of the simple nude for decorative 
purposes.—Violence.—In what sense Signorelli was the predecessor 
of Michelangelo, and in what way he exerted a direct influence 
over him.—s. The colouring of the Sistine vault.—6. Greek and 
Italian ideals of form.—Greek and Italian religious emotion.— 
7. Michelangelo was essentially 2 Romantic, not a Classic.— What 
this means.—His treatment of the body and the face.—8. His 
feeling for the male and female figure.—His ideal of womanhood 
is adult, verging on the masculine, rarely virginal—He seems to 
have understood the beauty of maternity.—Affinity between him 
and Lucretius.—Woman in his poems.—Her hazy indistinctness,— 
His intense and wholesome feeling for male beauty and strength. 
—g. History of the evolution of his form-ideal through four 
stages :—(a.) Influence of Doriatello and Greek art.—(b.) Realism 
and sincerity to Nature. —Culmination in the Cartoon.—{c.) Deter- 
mination of a schematic ideal.—(d.) Gradual descent into formal 
mannerism.—From the Last Judgment to the Paoline Chapel.— 
In old age the tender and graceful after-blossom of the designs for 
our Lord’s Passion and mythologies.—1o. Importance of original 
drawings.—Michelangelo’s theory on design.—His imaginative 
vigour, fecundity, and strength of memory.—11. The four greatest 
draughtsmen of the age compared.—Vehicles used by Michelangelo ; 
chiefly pen-and-ink and red and black chalk.—Circumstances under 


which he preferred one or the other.—The Arcieri at Windsor. 
236 


THE SISTINE CHAPEL. 237 


My 


Tue Sistine Chapel was built in 1473 by Baccio 
Pontelli, a Florentine architect, for Pope Sixtus IV. 
It is a simple barn-like chamber, 132 feet in length, 
44 in breadth, and 68 in height from the pavement. 
The ceiling consists of one expansive flattened vault, 
the central portion of which offers a large plane sur- 
face, well adapted to fresco decoration. The building 
is lighted by twelve windows, six upon each side of 
its length. These are placed high up, their rounded 
arches running parallel-with the first spring of the 
vaulting. The ends of the chapel are closed by flat 
walls, against the western of which is raised the 
altar. 

When Michelangelo was called to paint here, he 
found both sides of the building, just below the 
windows, decorated in fresco by Perugino, Cosimo 
Rosselli, Sandro Botticelli, Luca Signorelli, and 
Domenico Ghirlandajo. These masters had depicted, 
in a series of twelve subjects, the history of Moses 
and the life of Jesus. Above the lines of fresco, 
in the spaces between the windows and along the 
eastern end at the same height, Botticelli painted 
a row of twenty-eight Popes. The spaces below 
the frescoed histories, down to the seats which ran 
along the pavement, were blank, waiting for the 
tapestries which Raffaello afterwards supplied from 
cartoons now in possession of the English Crown. 


238 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


At the west end, above the altar, shone three decora- 
tive frescoes by Perugino, representing the Assump- 
tion of the Virgin, between the finding of Moses 
and the Nativity. The two last of these pictures 
opened respectively the history of Moses and the 
life of Christ, so that the Old and New Testaments 
were equally illustrated upon the Chapel walls. At 
the opposite, or eastern end, Ghirlandajo painted 
the Resurrection, and there was a corresponding 
picture of Michael contending with Satan for the 
body of Moses. 

Such was the aspect of the Sistine Chapel when 
Michelangelo began his great work. Perugino’s 
three frescoes on the west wall were afterwards 
demolished to make room for his Last Judgment. 
The two frescoes on the east wall are now poor 
pictures by very inferior masters; but the twelve 
Scripture histories and Botticelli’s twenty-eight Popes 
remain from the last years of the fifteenth century.’ 

Taken in their aggregate, the wall-paintings I have 
described afforded a fair sample of Umbrian and 
Tuscan art in its middle or quattrocento age of 
evolution. It remained for Buonarroti to cover the 
vault and the whole western end with masterpieces 
displaying what Vasari called the “modern” style in 
its most sublime and imposing manifestation. At 
the same time he closed the cycle of the figurative 


1 This quattrocento work was carried out before 1484, immediately 
after the building of the chapel. Vasari ascribes these Popes to 
Botticelli, 


SCHEME OF DECORATION. 239 


arts, and rendered any further progress on the same 
lines impossible. The growth which began with 
Niccold of Pisa and with Cimabue, which advanced 
through Giotto and his school, Perugino and Pin- 
turicchio, Piero della Francesca and Signorelli, Fra 
Angelico and Benozzo Gozzoli, the Ghirlandajo 
brothers, the Lippi and Botticelli, effloresced in 
Michelangelo, leaving nothing for after-comers but 
manneristic imitation. 


. IL. 


Michelangelo, instinctively and on principle, re- 
acted against the decorative methods of the fifteenth 
century. If he had to paint a biblical or mytho- 
logical subject, he avoided landscapes, trees, flowers, 
birds, beasts, and subordinate groups of figures. He 
eschewed the arabesques, the labyrinths of foliage 
and fruit enclosing pictured panels, the candelabra 
and gay bands of variegated patterns, which enabled 
a quattrocento painter, like Gozzoli or Pinturicchio, 
to produce brilliant and harmonious general effects 
at a small expenditure of intellectual energy. Where 
the human body struck the keynote of the music in 
a work of art, he judged that such simple adjuncts 
and naive concessions to the pleasure of the eye 
should be avoided.’ An architectural foundation for 


1 See Vasari, xli. p. 234. 


240 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


the plastic forms to rest on, as plain in structure and 
as grandiose in line as could be fashioned, must 
suffice. ‘These principles he put immediately to the 
test in his first decorative undertaking. For the 
vault of the Sistine he designed a mighty architec- 
tural framework in the form of a hypethral temple, 
suspended in the air on jutting pilasters, with bold 
cornices, projecting brackets, and ribbed arches flung 
across the void of heaven. Since the whole of this 
ideal building was painted upon plaster, its inconse- 
quence, want of support, and disconnection from the 
eround-plan of the chapel do not strike the mind. 
It is felt to be a mere basis for the display of pictorial 
art, the theatre for a thousand shapes of dignity and 
beauty. 

I have called this imaginary temple hypzthral, 
because the master left nine openings in the flattened 
surface of the central vault. They are unequal in 
size, five being short parallelograms, and four being 
spaces of the same shape but twice their length. 
Through these the eye is supposed to pierce the roof 
and discover the unfettered region of the heavens. 
But here again Michelangelo betrayed the inconse- 
quence of his invention. He filled the spaces in 
question with nine dominant paintings, representing 
the history of the Creation, the Fall, and the Deluge. 
Taking our position at the west end of the chapel 
and looking upwards, we see in the first compart- 
ment God dividing light from darkness; in the second, 
creating the sun and the moon and the solid earth ; 





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ARCHITECTURAL SETTING. 241 


in the third, animating the ocean with His brooding 
influence ; in the fourth, creating Adam ; in the fifth, 
creating Eve. ‘The sixth represents the temptation 
of our first parents and their expulsion from Paradise. 
The seventh shows Noah’s sacrifice before entering 
the ark; the eighth depicts the Deluge, and the 
ninth the drunkenness of Noah. It is clear that, 
between the architectural conception of a roof open- 
ing on the skies and these pictures of events which 
happened upon earth, there is no logical connec- 
tion. Indeed, Michelangelo’s new system of decora- 
tion bordered dangerously upon the barocco style, 
and contained within itself the germs of a vicious 
mannerism. ; 

It would be captious and unjust to push this 
criticism home. ‘The architectural setting provided 
for the figures and the pictures of the Sistine vault 
is so obviously conventional, every point of vantage 
has been so skilfully appropriated to plastic uses, 
every square inch of the ideal building becomes so 
naturally, and without confusion, a pedestal for the 
human form, that we are lost in wonder at the 
synthetic imagination which here for the first time 
combined the arts of architecture, sculpture, and 
painting in a single organism. Lach part of the 
immense composition, down to the smallest detail, 
is necessary to the total effect. We are in the pre- 
sence of a most complicated yet mathematically 
ordered scheme, which owes life and animation to 


one master-thought. In spite of its complexity and 
VoL, L Q 


242 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


scientific precision, the vault of the Sistine does not 
strike the mind as being artificial or worked out by 
calculation, but as being predestined to existence, 
inevitable, a cosmos instinct with vitality. 

On the pendentives between the spaces of the 
windows, running up to the ends of each of the 
five lesser pictures, Michelangelo placed alternate 
prophets and sibyls upon firm projecting consoles. 
Five sibyls and five prophets run along the side- 
walls of the chapel. The end-walls sustain each 
of them a prophet. These twelve figures are intro- 
duced as heralds and pioneers of Christ the Saviour, 
whose presence on the earth is demanded by the 
fall of man and the renewal of sin after the Deluge. 
In the lunettes above the windows and the arched 
recesses or spandrels over them are depicted scenes 
setting forth the genealogy of Christ and of his 
Mother. At each of the four corner-spandrels of 
the ceiling, Michelangelo painted, in spaces of a 
very peculiar shape and on a surface of embarrassing 
inequality, one magnificent subject symbolical of 
man’s redemption. ‘The first is the raising of the 
Brazen Serpent in the wilderness; the second, the 
punishment of Haman; the third, the victory of 
David over Goliath; the fourth, Judith with the 
head of Holofernes. 

Thus, with a profound knowledge of the Bible, 
and with an intense feeling for religious symbolism, 
‘Michelangelo unrolled the history of the creation of 
the world and man, the entrance of sin into the 


BIBLICAL HISTORY. AR 


human heart, the punishment of sin by water, and 
the reappearance of sin in Noah’s family. Having 
done this, he intimated, by means of four special 
mercies granted to the Jewish people—types and 
symbols of God’s indulgence—that a Saviour would 
arise to redeem the erring human race. In confirma- 
tion of this promise, he called twelve potent wit- 
nesses, seven of the Hebrew prophets and five of 
the Pagan sibyls. He made appeal to history, and 
set around the thrones on which these witnesses 
are seated scenes detached from the actual lives of 
our Lord’s human ancestors. 

The intellectual power of this conception is at 
least equal to the majesty and sublime strength of 
its artistic presentation. An awful sense of coming 
doom and merited damnation hangs in the thun- 
derous canopy of the Sistine vault, tempered by a 
solemn and sober expectation of the Saviour. It is 
much to be regretted that Christ, the Desired of 
all Nations, the Redeemer and Atoner, appears no- 
where adequately represented in the Chapel. When 
Michelangelo resumed his work there, it was to 
portray him as an angered Hercules, hurling curses 
upon helpless victims. The august rhetoric of the 
ceiling loses its effective value when we can nowhere 
point to Christ’s life and work on earth ; when there 
is no picture of the Nativity, none of the Cruci- 
fixion, none of the Resurrection; and when the 
feeble panels of a Perugino and a Cosimo Rosselli 
are crushed into insignificance by the terrible Last 


244 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Judgment. In spite of Buonarroti’s great creative 
strength, and injuriously to his real feeling as a 
Christian, the piecemeal production which governs 
all large art undertakings results here in a maimed 
and one-sided rendering of what theologians call the 
Scheme of Salvation. 


Til. 


So much has been written about the pictorial 
beauty, the sublime imagination, the dramatic energy, 
the profound significance, the exact science, the shy 
graces, the terrible force, and finally the vivid powers 
of characterisation displayed in these frescoes, that 
I feel it would be impertinent to attempt a new 
discourse upon a theme so time-worn. I must con- 
tent myself with referring to what I have already 
published, which will, I hope, be sufficient to demon- 
strate that I do not avoid the task for want of 
enthusiasm. The study of much rhetorical criti- 
cism makes me feel strongly that, in front of certain 
masterpieces, silence is best, or, in lieu of silence, 
some simple pregnant sayings, capable of rousing 
folk to independent observation. 

These convictions need not prevent me, however, 
from fixing attention upon a subordinate matter, but 
one which has the most important bearing upon 


1 Renatssance in Italy, “The Fine Arts,” pp. 342-346, 407-412. 





HEAD OF ISAIAH. 





THE HUMAN FIGURE. 246 


Michelangelo’s genius. After designing the architec- 
tural theatre which I have attempted to describe, 
and filling its main spaces with the vast religious 
drama he unrolled symbolically in a series of primeval 
scenes, statuesque figures, and countless minor groups 
contributing to one intellectual conception; he pro- 
ceeded to charge the interspaces—all that is usually 
left for facile decorative details—with an army of pas- 
sionately felt and wonderfully executed nudes, forms 
of youths and children, naked or half draped, in every 
conceivable posture and with every possible variety of 
facial type and expression. On pedestals, cornices, 
medallions, tympanums, in the angles made by arches, 
wherever a vacant plane or unused curve was found, 
he set these vivid transcripts from humanity in ac- 
tion. We need not stop to inquire what he intended 
by that host of plastic shapes evoked from his ima- 
gination. The triumphant leaders of the crew, the 
twenty lads who sit upon their consoles, sustaining 
medallions by ribands which they lift, have been 
variously and inconclusively interpreted. In the long 
row of Michelangelo’s creations, those young men are 
perhaps the most significant—athletic adolescents, 
with faces of feminine delicacy and poignant fascina- 
tion. But it serves no purpose to inquire what they 
symbolise. If we did so, we should have to go further, 
and ask, What do the bronze figures below them, 
twisted into the boldest attitudes the human frame 
can take, or the twinned children on the pedestals, 
signify? In this region, the region of pure plastic 


246 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


play, when art drops the wand of the interpreter 
and allows physical beauty to be a law unto itself, 
Michelangelo demonstrated that no decorative 
element in the hand of a really supreme master 
is equal to the nude. 

Previous artists, with a strong instinct for plastic 
as opposed to merely picturesque effect, had worked 
upon the same line. Donatello revelled in the 
rhythmic dance and stationary grace of children. 
Luca Signorelli initiated the plan of treating com- 
plex ornament by means of the mere human body; 
and for this reason, in order to define the position of 
Michelangelo in Italian art-history, I shall devote 
the next section of this chapter to Luca’s work at 
Orvieto. But Buonarroti in the Sistine carried 
their suggestions to completion. The result is a 
mapped-out chart of living figures—a vast pattern, 
each detail of which is a masterpiece of modelling. 
After we have grasped the intellectual content of 
the whole, the message it was meant to inculcate, 
the spiritual meaning present to the maker's mind, 
we discover that, in the sphere of artistic accomplish- 
ment, as distinct from intellectual suggestion, one 
rhythm of purely figurative beauty has been carried 
throughout—from God creating Adam to the boy 
who waves his torch above the censer of the Eryth- 
rean sibyl. 


LUCA SIGNORELLI. 247 


IV. 


Of all previous painters, only Luca Signorelli de- 
serves to be called the forerunner of Michelangelo, 
and his Chapel of S. Brizio in the Cathedral at 
Orvieto in some remarkable respects anticipates the 
Sistine. This eminent master was commissioned in 
1499 to finish its decoration, a small portion of 
which had been begun by Fra Angelico. He com- 
pleted the whole Chapel within the space of two 
years; so that the young Michelangelo, upon one of 
his journeys to or from Rome, may probably have seen 
the frescoes in their glory. Although no visit to 
Orvieto is recorded by his biographers, the fame of 
these masterpieces by a man whose work at Florence 
had already influenced his youthful genius must cer- 
tainly have attracted him to a city which lay on the 
direct route from Tuscany to the Campagna. 

The four walls of the Chapel of S. Brizio are 
covered with paintings setting forth events imme- 
diately preceding and following the day of judg- 
ment. A succession of panels, differing in size and 
shape, represent the preaching of Antichrist, the 
destruction of the world by fire, the resurrection 
of the body, the condemnation of the lost, the 
reception of saved souls into bliss, and the final 
states of heaven and hell. These main subjects 
occupy the upper spaces of each wall, while below 
them are placed portraits of poets, surrounded by 


248 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


rich and fanciful arabesques, including various epi- 
sodes from Dante and antique mythology. Obeying 
the spirit of the fifteenth century, Signorelli did not 
aim at what may be termed an architectural effect in 
his decoration of this building. Each panel of the 
whole is treated separately, and with very unequal 
energy, the artist seeming to exert his strength 
chiefly in those details which made demands on,his 
profound knowledge of the human form and his 
enthusiasm for the nude. The men and women of 
the Resurrection, the sublime angels of Heaven and 
of the Judgment, the discoloured and degraded 
fiends of Hell, the magnificently foreshortened 
clothed figures of the Fulminati, the portraits in the 
preaching of Antichrist, reveal Luca’s specific quality 
as a painter, at once impressively imaginative and 
crudely realistic. There is something in his way of 
regarding the world and of reproducing its aspects 
which dominates our fancy, does violence to our 
sense of harmony and beauty, leaves us broken and 
bewildered, resentful and at the same moment en- 
thralled. He is a power which has to be reckoned 
with; and the reason for speaking about him at 
length here is that, in this characteristic blending of 
intense vision with impassioned realistic effort after 
truth to fact, this fascination mingled with repulsion, 
he anticipated Michelangelo. Deep at the root of 
all Buonarroti’s artistic qualities lie these contra- 
dictions. Studying Signorelli, we study a parallel 
psychological problem. The chief difference between 


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FRESCOES AT ORVIETO. 249 


the two masters lies in the command of esthetic 
synthesis, the constructive sense of harmony, which 
belonged to the younger, but which might, we feel, 
have been granted in like measure to the elder, 
had Luca been born, as Michelangelo was, to com- 
plete the evolution of Italian figurative art, instead 
of marking one of its most important intermediate 
moments. 

The decorative methods and instincts of the two 
men were closely similar. Both scorned any ele- 
ment of interest or beauty which was not strictly 
plastic—the human body supported by architecture 
or by rough indications of the world we live in. 
Signorelli invented an intricate design for ara- 
besque pilasters, one on each side of the door lead- 
ing from his chapel into the Cathedral. They are 
painted en grisaille, and are composed exclusively of 
nudes, mostly male, perched or grouped in a marvel- 
lous variety of attitudes upon an ascending series of 
slender-stemmed vases, which build up gigantic can- 
delabra by their aggregation. ‘The naked form is 
treated with audacious freedom. It appears to be 
elastic in the hands of the modeller. Some dead 
bodies carried on the backs of brawny porters are 
even awful by the contrast of their wet-clay limpness 
with the muscular energy of brutal life beneath them. 
Satyrs giving drink to one another, fauns whisper- 
ing in the ears of stalwart women, centaurs trotting 
with corpses flung across their cruppers, combatants 
trampling in frenzy upon prostrate enemies, men 


250 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


sunk in self-abandonment to sloth or sorrow—such 
are the details of these incomparable columns, where 
our sense of the grotesque and vehement is imme- 
diately corrected by a perception of rare energy in 
the artist who could play thus with his plastic 
puppets. 

We have here certainly the preludings to Michel- 
angelo’s serener, more monumental work in the Sis- 
tine Chapel. The leading motive is the same in 
both great masterpieces. It consists in the use of 
the simple body, if possible the nude body, for the 
expression of thought and emotion, the telling of a 
tale, the delectation of the eye by ornamental details. 
It consists also in the subordination of the female 
to the male nude as the symbolic unit of artistic 
utterance. Buonarroti is greater than Signorelli 
chiefly through that larger and truer perception of 
esthetic unity which seems to be the final outcome 
of a long series of artistic efforts. The arabesques, 
for instance, with which Luca wreathed his portraits 
of the poets, are monstrous, bizarre, in doubtful taste. 
Michelangelo, with a finer instinct for harmony, a 
deeper grasp on his own dominant ideal, excluded 
this element of quattrocento decoration from his 
scheme. Raffaello, with the graceful tact essential 
to the style, developed its crude rudiments into the 
choice forms of fanciful delightfulness which charm 
us in the Loggie. 

Signorelli loved violence. A large proportion of 
the circular pictures painted en grisadle on these 


SIGNORELLI’S FORCE AND VIOLENCE. 251 


walls represent scenes of massacre, assassination, 
torture, ruthless outrage. One of them, extremely 
spirited in design, shows a group of three execu- 
tioners hurling men with millstones round their 
necks into a raging river from the bridge which 
spans it. The first victim flounders half merged 
in the flood; a second plunges head foremost 
through the air; the third stands bent upon the 
parapet, his shoulders pressed down by the varlets 
on each side, at the very point of being flung to 
death by drowning. In another of these pictures 
a man seated upon the ground is being tortured by 
the breaking of his teeth, while a furious fellow 
holds a club suspended over him, in act to shatter 
his thigh-bones. Naked soldiers wrestle in mad 
conflict, whirl staves above their heads, fling stones, 
displaying their coarse muscles with a kind of frenzy. 
Even the classical subjects suffer from extreme 
dramatic energy of treatment. Ceres, seeking her 
daughter through the plains of Sicily, dashes fran- 
tically on a car of dragons, her hair dishevelled to 
the winds, her cheeks gashed by her own crooked 
fingers. Eurydice struggles in the clutch of bestial 
devils ; Pluto, like a medieval Satan, frowns above the 
scene of fiendish riot; the violin of Orpheus thrills 
faintly through the infernal tumult. Gazing on the 
spasms and convulsions of these grim subjects, we 
are inclined to credit a legend preserved at Orvieto 
to the effect that the painter depicted his own 
unfaithful mistress in the naked woman who is 


252 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


being borne on a demon’s back through the air to 
hell. 

No one who has studied Michelangelo impartially 
will deny that in this preference for the violent he 
came near to Signorelli. We feel it in his choice 
of attitude, the strain he puts upon the lines of 
plastic composition, the stormy energy of his con- 
ception and expression. It is what we call his 
terribilita. But here again that dominating sense 
of harmony, that instinct for the necessity of sub- 
ordinating each artistic element to one strain of 
architectonic music, which I have already indicated 
as the leading note of difference between him and 
the painter of Cortona, intervened to elevate his 
terribleness into the region of sublimity. The 
violence of Michelangelo, unlike that of Luca, lay 
not so much in the choice of savage subjects 
(cruelty, ferocity, extreme physical and mental 
torment) as in a forceful, passionate, tempestuous 
way of handling all the themes he treated. The 
angels of the Judgment, sustaining the symbols 
of Christ’s Passion, wrestle and bend their agita- 
ted limbs like athletes. Christ emerges from the 
sepulchre, not in victorious tranquillity, but with 
the clash and clangour of an irresistible energy set 
free. Even in the Crucifixion, one leg has been 
wrenched away from the nail which pierced its foot, 
and writhes round the knee of the other still left 
riven to the cross. The loves of Leda and the Swan, 
of Ixion and Juno, are spasms of voluptuous pain; 


SIGNORELLI AND MICHELANGELO. 253 


the sleep of the Night is troubled with fantastic 
dreams, and the Dawn starts into consciousness 
with a shudder of prophetic anguish. There is nota 
hand, a torso, a simple nude, sketched by this extra- 
ordinary master, which does not vibrate with nervous 
tension, as though the fingers that grasped the pen 
were clenched and the eyes that viewed the model 
glowed beneath knit brows. Michelangelo, in fact, 
saw nothing, felt nothing, interpreted nothing, on 
exactly the same lines as any one who had preceded 
or who followed him. His imperious personality he 
stamped upon the smallest trifle of his work. 

Luca’s frescoes at Orvieto, when compared with 
Michelangelo’s in the Sistine, mark the transition 
from the art of the fourteenth, through the art of 
the fifteenth, to that of the sixteenth century, with 
broad and trenchant force. They are what Mar- 
lowe’s dramas were to Shakespeare’s. ‘They retain 
much of the medizval tradition both as regards form 
and sentiment. We feel this distinctly in the treat- 
ment of Dante, whose genius seems to have exerted at 
least as strong an influence over Signorelli’s imagi- 
nation as over that of Michelangelo. The episodes 
from the Divine Comedy are painted in a rude 
Gothic spirit. The spirits of Hell seem borrowed 
from grotesque bas-reliefs of the Pisan school. The 
draped, winged, and armed angels of Heaven are 
posed with a ceremonious research of suavity or gran- 
deur. ‘These and other features of his work carry 
us back to the period of Giotto and Niccold Pisano. 


254 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


But the true force of the man, what made him a 
commanding master of the middle period, what dis- 
tinguished him from all his fellows of the quattro- 
cento, is the passionate delight he took in pure 
humanity—the nude, the body studied under all its 
aspects and with no repugnance for its coarseness— 
man in his crudity made the sole sufficient object for 
figurative art, anatomy regarded as the crowning and 
supreme end of scientific exploration. It is this in 
his work which carries us on toward the next age, 
and justifies our calling Luca “the morning-star of 
Michelangelo.” 

It would be wrong to ascribe too much to the 
immediate influence of the elder over the younger 
artist—at any rate in so far as the frescoes of the 
Chapel of S. Brizio may have determined the creation 
of the Sistine. Yet Vasari left on record that “even 
Michelangelo followed the manner of Signorelli, as 
any one may see.” Undoubtedly, Buonarroti, while 
an inmate of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s palace at Florence, 
felt the power of Luca’s Madonna with the naked 
figures in the background; the leading motive of 
which he transcended in his Doni Holy Family.’ 
Probably at an early period he had before his eyes 
the bold nudities, uncompromising designs, and 
awkward composition of Luca’s so-called School of 
Pan.” In like manner, we may be sure that during 


1 Both of these pictures will be found in the Uffizi. 

2 Now in the Berlin Museum. The picture can with some reason 
be identified with a tempera-painting presented to Lorenzo the Mag- 
nificent by Signorelli. 


IMPORTANCE OF THE SISTINE FRESCOES. 255 


his first visit to Rome he was attracted by Signorelli’s 
solemn fresco of Moses in the Sistine. These things 
were sufficient to establish a link of connection be- 
tween the painter of Cortona and the Florentine 
sculptor. And when Michelangelo visited the Chapel 
of S. Brizio, after he had fixed and formed his style 
(exhibiting his innate force of genius in the Pieta, 
the Bacchus, the Cupid, the David, the statue of 
Julius, the Cartoon for the Battle of Pisa), that early 
bond of sympathy must have been renewed and 
enforced. They were men of a like temperament, 
and governed by kindred zsthetic instincts. Michel- 
angelo brought to its perfection that system of work- 
ing wholly through the human form which Signorelli 
initiated. He shared his violence, his terribilzta, his 
almost brutal candour. In the fated evolution of 
Italian art, describing its parabola of vital energy, 
Michelangelo softened, sublimed, and harmonised his 
predecessor's qualities. He did this by abandoning 
Luca’s naivetés and crudities ; exchanging his savage 
transcripts from coarse life for profoundly studied 
idealisations of form; subordinating his rough and 
casual design to schemes of balanced composition, 
based on architectural relations; penetrating the 
whole accomplished work, as he intended it should 
be, with a solemn and severe strain of unifying 
intellectual melody. 

Viewed in this light, the vault of the Sistine and 
the later fresco of the Last Judgment may be taken 
as the final outcome of all previous Italian art upon 


256 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


a single line of creative energy, and that line the 
one anticipated by Luca Signorelli. In like manner, 
the Stanze and Loggie of the Vatican were the final 
outcome of the same process upon another line, 
suggested by Perugino and Fra Bartolommeo. 
Michelangelo adapted to his own uses and bent 
to his own genius motives originated by the Pisani, 
Giotto, Giacopo della Quercia, Donatello, Masaccio, 
while working in the spirit of Signorelli. He fused 
and recast the antecedent materials of design in sculp- 
ture and painting, producing a quintessence of art 
beyond which it was impossible to advance without 
breaking the rhythm, so intensely strung, and with- 
out contradicting too violently the parent inspiration. 
He strained the chord of rhythm to its very utmost, 
and made incalculable demands upon the religious 
inspiration of its predecessors. His mighty talent 
was equal to the task of transfusion and remodelling 
which the exhibition of the supreme style demanded. 
But after him there remained nothing for successors 
left except mechanical imitation, soulless rehandling — 
of themes he had exhausted by reducing them to his 
imperious imagination in a crucible of fiery intensity. 


V. 


No critic with a just sense of phraseology would 
call Michelangelo a colourist in the same way as 





E OF THE GENII. 


aN 


O 


{ 
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ws, 





SCHEME OF COLOUR. 257 


Titian and Rubens were colourists. Still it cannot 
be denied with justice that the painter of the Sistine 
had a keen perception of what his art required in this 
region, and of how toattainit. He planned a compre- 
hensive architectural scheme, which served as setting 
and support for multitudes of draped and undraped 
human figures. The colouring is kept deliberately 
low and subordinate to the two main features of the 
design—architecture, and the plastic forms of men 
and women. Flesh-tints, varying from the strong 
red tone of Jonah’s athletic manhood, through the 
glowing browns of the seated Genii, to the delicate 
carnations of Adam and the paler hues of Eve; 
orange and bronze in draperies, medallions, deco- 
rative nudes; russets like the tints of dead leaves; 
lilacs, cold greens, blue used sparingly; all these 
colours are dominated and brought into harmony by 
the greys of the architectural setting. It may indeed 
be said that the different qualities of flesh-tints, the 
architectural greys, and a dull bronzed yellow strike 
the chord of the composition. Reds are conspicuous 
by their absence in any positive hue. ‘There is no 
vermilion, no pure scarlet or crimson, but a mixed 
tint verging upon lake. The yellows are brought 
near to orange, tawny, bronze, except in the hair of 
youthful personages, a large majority of whom are 
blonde. ‘The only colour which starts out staringly is 
ultramarine, owing of course to this mineral material 
resisting time and change more perfectly than the 


pigments with which it is associated. ‘The whole 
VoL. I. R 


258 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO, 


scheme leaves a grave harmonious impression on the 
mind, thoroughly in keeping with the sublimity of 
the thoughts expressed. No words can describe the 
beauty of the flesh-painting, especially in the figures 
of the Genii, or the technical delicacy with which 
the modelling of limbs, the modulation from one 
tone to another, have been carried from silvery 
transparent shades up to the strongest accents. 


VI. 


Mr. Ruskin has said, and very justly said, that 
“the highest art can do no more than rightly repre- 
sent the human form.”? This is what the Italians 
of the Renaissance meant when, through the mouths 
of Ghiberti, Buonarroti, and Cellini, they proclaimed 
that the perfect drawing of a fine nude, ‘un bel 
corpo ignudo,” was the final test of mastery in plastic 
art. Mr. Ruskin develops his text in sentences which 
have peculiar value from his lips. ‘This is the 
simple test, then, of a perfect school—that it has 
represented the human form so that it is impossible 
to conceive of its being better done. And that, I 
repeat, has been accomplished twice only: once in 
Athens, once in Florence. And so narrow is the 
excellence even of these two exclusive schools, that 
it cannot be said of either of them that they repre- 

1 Aratra Pentelici, ed. 1872, p. 180 (Section 183 of the Lectures). 


GREEK AND TUSCAN IDEALS OF FORM. 259 


sented the entire human form. The Greeks per- 
fectly drew and perfectly moulded the body and 
limbs, but there is, so far as I am aware, no instance 
of their representing the face as well as any great 
Italian. On the other hand, the Italian painted and 
carved the face insuperably; but I believe there is 
no instance of his having perfectly represented the 
body, which, by command of his religion, it became 
his pride to despise and his safety to mortify.” 

We need not pause to consider whether the 
Italian’s inferiority to the Greek’s in the plastic 
modelling of human bodies was due to the artist’s 
own religious sentiment. That seems a far-fetched 
explanation for the shortcomings of men so frankly 
realistic and so scientifically earnest as the masters 
of the Cinque Cento were. Michelangelo’s magnifi- 
cent cartoon of Leda and the Swan, if it falls short 
of some similar subject in some gabinetto segreto of 
antique fresco, does assuredly not do so because 
the draughtsman’s hand faltered in pious dread or 
pious aspiration. Nevertheless, Ruskin is right in 
telling us that no Italian modelled a female nude 
equal to the Aphrodite of Melos, or a male nude 
equal to the Apoxyomenos of the Braccio Nuovo. 
He is also right in pointing out that no Greek sculp- 
tor approached the beauty of facial form and ex- 
pression which we recognise in Raffaello’s Madonna 
di San Sisto, in Sodoma’s S. Sebastian, in Guercino’s 
Christ at the Corsini Palace, in scores of early 
Florentine sepulchral monuments and pictures, in 


260 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Umbrian saints and sweet strange portrait-fancies 
by Da Vinci. 

The fact seems to be that Greek and Italian plastic 
art followed different lines of development, owing to 
the difference of dominant ideas in the races, and 
to the difference of social custom. Religion natur- 
ally played a foremost part in the art-evolution of 
both epochs. The anthropomorphic Greek mythology 
encouraged sculptors to concentrate their attention 
upon what Hegel called ‘“‘the sensuous manitfesta- 
tion of the idea,” while Greek habits rendered them 
familiar with the body frankly exhibited. Medieval 
religion withdrew Italian sculptors and painters from 
the problems of purely physical form, and obliged 
them to study the expression of sentiments and 
aspirations which could only be rendered by em- 
phasising psychical qualities revealed through phy- 
siognomy. At the same time, modern habits of life 
removed the naked body from their ken. 

We may go further, and observe that the condi- 
tions under which Greek art flourished developed 
what the Germans call “ Allgemeinheit,” a tendency 
to generalise, which was inimical to strongly marked 
facial expression or characterisation. The condi- 
tions of Italian art, on the other hand, favoured an 
opposite tendency—to particularise, to enforce detail, 
to emphasise the artist’s own ideal or the model’s 
quality. When the type of a Greek deity had been 
fixed, each successive master varied this within the 
closest limits possible. For centuries the type re- 


pane se OMT 
eine IA LOLA IAT , 


ae 


GREEK AND MODERN RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 261 


mained fundamentally unaltered, undergoing subtle 
transformations, due partly to the artist’s tempera- 
ment, and partly to changes in the temper of society 
Consequently those aspects of the human form which 
are capable of most successful generalisation, the body 
and the limbs, exerted a kind of conventional tyranny 
over Greek art. And Greek artists applied to the 
face the same rules of generalisation which were 
applicable to the body. 

The Greek god or goddess was a sensuous mani- 
festation of the idea, a particle of universal godhood 
incarnate in a special fleshly form, corresponding to 
the particular psychological attributes of the deity 
whom the sculptor had to represent. No deviation 
from the generalised type was possible. The Chris- 
tian God, on the contrary, is a spirit; and all the 
emanations from this spirit, whether direct, as in the 
person of Christ, or derived, as in the persons of the 
saints, owe their sensuous form and substance to the 
exigencies of mortal existence, which these persons 
temporarily and phenomenally obeyed. Since, then, 
the sensuous manifestation has now become merely 
symbolic, and is no longer an indispensable investi- 
ture of the idea, it may be altered at will in Chris- 
tian art without irreverence. The utmost capacity 
of the artist is now exerted, not in enforcing or 
refining a generalised type, but in discovering 
some new facial expression which shall reveal psy- 
chological quality in a particular being. Doing so, 
he inevitably insists upon the face; and having 


262 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


formed a face expressive of some defined quality, he 
can hardly give to the body that generalised beauty 
which belongs to a Greek nymph or athlete. 

What we mean by the differences between Classic 
and Romantic art lies in the distinctions I am drawing. 
Classicism, sacrifices character to breadth. Roman- 


en arenes” 


ticism_sacrifices breadth” ‘to character. Classic art 
deals more triumphantly with the body, because the 
body gains by being broadly treated. Romantic art 
deals more triumphantly with the face, because the 
features lose by being broadly treated. 

This brings me back to Mr. Ruskin, who, in 
another of his treatises, condemns Michelangelo 
for a want of variety, beauty, feeling, in his heads 
and faces. Were this the case, Michelangelo would 
have little claim to rank as one of the world’s chief 
artists. We have admitted that the Italians did not — 
produce such perfectly beautiful bodies and limbs 
as the Greeks did, and have agreed that the Greeks 
produced less perfectly beautiful faces than the 
Italians. Suppose, then, that Michelangelo failed in 
his heads and faces, he, being an Italian, and there- 
fore confessedly inferior to the Greeks in his bodies 
and limbs, must, by the force of logic, emerge less 
meritorious than we thought him. 


MICHELANGELO’S ROMANTICISM. 263 


VI. 


To many of my readers the foregoing section will 
appear superfluous, polemical, sophistic—three bad 
things. I wrote it, and I let it stand, however, be- 
cause it serves as preface to what I have to say in 
general about Michelangelo’s ideal of form. He was 
essentially a Romantic as opposed to a Classic artist. 
That is to say, he sought invariably for character— 
character in type, character in attitude, character 
in every action of each muscle, character in each 
extravagance of pose. He applied the Romantic 
principle to the body and the limbs, exactly to that 
region of the human form which the Greeks had 
conquered as their province. He did so with con- 
summate science and complete mastery of physiolo- 
gical law. What is more, he compelled the body to 
become expressive, not, as the Greeks had done, of 
broad general conceptions, but of the most intimate 
and poignant personal emotions. This was his main 
originality. At the same time, being a Romantic, he 
deliberately renounced the main tradition of that 
manner. He refused to study portraiture, as Vasari 
tells us, and as we see so plainly in the statues of the 
Dukes at Florence. He generalised his faces, com- 
posing an ideal cast of features out of several types. 


_) In the rendering of the face and head, then, he chose 


to be a Classic, while in the treatment of the body he 
was vehemently modern. In all his work which is 


264 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


not meant to be dramatic—that is, excluding the 
damned souls in the Last Judgment, the bust of 
Brutus, and some keen psychological designs—char- 
acter is sacrificed to a studied ideal of form, so far 
as the face is concerned. That he did this wilfully, 
on principle, is certain. The proof remains in the 
twenty heads of those incomparable genii of the 
Sistine, each one of whom possesses a beauty and 
a quality peculiar to himself alone. They show 
that, if he had so chosen, he could have played 
upon the human countenance with the same facility 
as on the human body, varying its expressiveness 
ad infinitum. 

Why Michelangelo preferred to generalise the 
face and to particularise the body remains a secret 
buried in the abysmal deeps of his personality. In 
his studies from the model, unlike Lionardo, he 
almost always left the features vague, while working 
out the trunk and limbs with strenuous passion. He 
never seems to have been caught and fascinated by 
the problem offered by the eyes and features of a 
male or female. He places masks or splendid com- 
monplaces upon frames palpitant and vibrant with 
vitality in pleasure or in anguish. 

In order to guard against an apparent contra- 
diction, I must submit that, when Michelangelo 
particularised the body and the limbs, he strove to 
make them the symbols of some definite passion or 
emotion. He seems to have been more anxious 
about the suggestions afforded by their pose and 





WITH PROPORTION 


’ 


E 


MALE FIGUR 


HIS ARBITRARY CHOICE OF ATTITUDES. 265 


muscular employment than he was about the expres- 
sion of the features. But we shall presently discover 
that, so far as pure physical type is concerned, he 
early began to generalise the structure of the body, 
passing finaliy into what may not unjustly be called 
a mannerism of form. 

These points may be still further illustrated by 
what a competent critic has recently written upon 
Michelangelo’s treatment of form.’ ‘‘ No one,” says 
Professor Briicke, ‘‘ever knew so well as Michel- 
angelo Buonarroti how to produce powerful and 
strangely harmonious effects by means of figures in 
themselves open to criticism, simply by his mode of 
placing and ordering them, and of distributing their 
lines. For him a figure existed only in his particular 
representation of it; how it would have looked in 
any other position was a matter of no concern to 
him.” We may even go further, and maintain that 
Michelangelo was sometimes wilfully indifferent to 
the physical capacities of the human body in his 
passionate research of attitudes which present pic- | 
turesque and novel beauty.” The ancients worked 
on quite a different method. They created standard 
types which, in every conceivable posture, would 


1 The Human Figure; its Beauties and Defects. By Ernest Brticke. 
English translation. London : Grevel, 1891. 

2 I have tested several of the genii of the Sistine by placing an ex- 
ceptionally supple and intelligent model exactly in their attitudes. It 
seemed to me clear that, however admirable as arrangements of lines 
and suggestions of audacious posture they may be, some of these figures 
strain the possibilities of nature beyond their limits. 


266 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


exhibit the grace and symmetry belonging to well- 
proportioned frames. Michelangelo looked to the 
effect of a particular posture. He may have been 
seduced by his habit of modelling figures in clay 
instead of going invariably to the living subject, 
and so may have handled nature with unwarrantable 
freedom. Anyhow, we have here another demon- 
stration of his romanticism. 


VIII. 


The true test of the highest art is that it should 
rightly represent the human form. Agreed upon 
this point, it remains for us to consider in what way 
Michelangelo conceived and represented the human 
form. If we can discover his ideal, his principles, 
his leading instincts in this decisive matter, we shall 
unlock, so far as that is possible, the secret of his 
personality as man and artist. The psychological 
quality of every great master must eventually be 
determined by his mode of dealing with the pheno- 
mena of sex. 

In Pheidias we find a large impartiality. His 
men and women are cast in the same mould of 
grandeur, inspired with equal strength and sweet- 
ness, antiphonal notes in dual harmony. Praxiteles 
leans to the female, Lysippus to the male; and so, 
through all the gamut of the figurative craftsmen, 


MALE AND FEMALE BEAUTY. 267 


we discover more or less affinity for man or woman. 
One is swayed by woman and her gracefulness, the 
other by man and his vigour. Few have realised 
the Pheidian perfection of doing equal justice. 

Michelangelo emerges as a mighty master who 
was dominated by the vision of male beauty, and 
who saw the female mainly through the fascination 
of the other sex. The defect of his art is due toa 
certain constitutional callousness, a want of sensuous 
or imaginative sensibility for what is specifically 
feminine. 

Not a single woman carved or painted by the 
hand of Michelangelo has the charm of early youth 
or the grace of virginity. The Eve of the Sistine, 
the Madonna of S. Peter’s, the Night and Dawn of 
the Medicean Sacristy, are female in the anatomy of 
their large and grandly modelled forms, but not femi- 
nine in their sentiment. This proposition requires 
no proof. It is only needful to recall a Madonna by 
Raphael, a Diana by Correggio, a Leda by Lionardo, 
a Venus by Titian, a S. Agnes by Tintoretto. We 
find ourselves immediately in a different region— 
the region of artists who loved, admired, and com- 
prehended what is feminine in the beauty and the 
temperament of women. Michelangelo neither loved, 
nor admired, nor yielded to the female sex. ‘There- 
fore he could not deal plastically with what is best 
and loveliest in the female form. His plastic ideal 
of the woman is masculine. He builds a colossal 
frame of muscle, bone, and flesh, studied with supreme 


268 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


anatomical science. He gives to Eve the full pelvis 
and enormous haunches of an adult matron. It 
might here be urged that he chose to symbolise the 
fecundity of her who was destined to be the mother 
of the human race. But if this was his meaning, 
why did he not make Adam a corresponding symbol 
of fatherhood? Adam is an adolescent man, colossal 
in proportions, but beardless, hairless; the attributes 
of sex in him are developed, but not matured by use. 
The Night, for whom no symbolism of maternity was 
needed, is a woman who has passed through many 
pregnancies. Those deeply delved wrinkles on the 
vast and flaccid abdomen sufficiently indicate this. 
Yet when we turn to Michelangelo's sonnets on 
Night, we find that he habitually thought of her as 
a mysterious and shadowy being, whose influence, 
though potent for the soul, disappeared before the 
frailest of all creatures bearing light.* The Dawn, 
again, in her deep lassitude, has nothing of vernal 
freshness. Built upon the same type as the Night, 
she looks like Messalina dragging herself from 
heavy slumber, for once satiated as well as tired, 
stricken for once with the conscience of disgust. 
When he chose to depict the acts of passion or of 
sensual pleasure, a similar want of sympathy with 
what is feminine in womanhood leaves an even 
more discordant impression on the mind. I would 


1 Sonnets xlii-xliv. It is possible that a line in the first of these 
sonnets may throw some light upon the symbolism of La Notte: “Ma 
Vombra sol a piantar |’ uomo serve.” 


THE FEMALE TYPE IN MICHELANGELO. 269 


base the proof of this remark upon the marble Leda 
of the Bargello Museum, and an old engraving of 
Ixion clasping the phantom of Juno under the form 
of acloud.! In neither case do we possess Michel- 
angelo’s own handiwork; he must not, therefore, 
be credited with the revolting expression, as of a 
drunken profligate, upon the face of Leda. Yet 
in both cases he is indubitably responsible for the 
general design, and for the brawny carnality of the 
repulsive woman. I find it difficult to resist the 
conclusion that Michelangelo felt himself compelled 
to treat women as though they were another and 
less graceful sort of males. The sentiment of woman, 
what really distinguishes the sex, whether volup- 
tuously or passionately or poetically apprehended, 
emerges in no eminent instance of his work. There 


1 The history of the Leda will be found in Chapter IX. of this work. 
I should have preferred to cite the Cartoon at Burlington House, or 
the picture in the National Gallery, were they not practically unknown 
to the public. There are many repetitions of the Leda scattered 
through Europe, agreeing in the general lines of composition. The 
print of Ixion shows him in the act of embracing a herculean woman, 
with fierce passion, in a contorted and suggestive attitude, among 
the clouds. At the right of the composition above, Juno in her car 
is seen modelling a cloud-form. Below is a landscape with ruins, 
a lion couchant on a marble plinth, a stone satyr without arms ; also 
one naked man crossing a torrent on a withered tree-trunk, and another 
clothed praying to the skies. The engraving is executed in the manner 
of Jacopo Caraglio, and Perino del Vaga’s name has been connected 
with the design. Mr. Louis Fagan, of the British Museum, to whom I 
wrote for information, referred me to Bartsch, vol. xx. p. 99, No.1. It 
is impossible, I think, that any one but Michelangelo should have been 
the originator of the conception. We know from Vasari that Perino 
del Vaga was a diligent student of Michelangelo’s works, and that he 
was an associate of his familiar friend Piloto. 


270 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


is a Cartoon at Naples for a Bacchante, which 
Bronzino transferred to canvas and coloured. This 
design illustrates the point on which I am insisting. 
An athletic circus-rider of mature years, with abnor- 
mally developed muscles, might have posed as model 
for this female votary of Dionysus. Before he made 
this drawing, Michelangelo had not seen those 
frescoes of the dancing Bacchantes from Pompeii ; 
nor had he perhaps seen the Menads on Greek 
bas-reliefs tossing wild tresses backwards, swaying 
virginal lithe bodies to the music of the tambourine. 
We must not, therefore, compare his concept with 
those masterpieces of the later classical imagination. 
Still, many of his contemporaries, vastly inferior to 
him in penetrative insight, a Giovanni da Udine, a 
Perino del Vaga, a Primaticcio, not to speak of 
Raffaello or of Lionardo, felt what the charm of 
youthful womanhood upon the revel might be. He 
remained insensible to the melody of purely feminine 
lines; and the only reason why his transcripts from 
the female form are not gross like those of Flemish 
painters, repulsive like Rembrandt’s, fleshly like 
Rubens’s, disagreeable like the drawings made 
by criminals in prisons, is that they have little 
womanly about them. 

Lest these assertions should appear too dogmatic, 
I will indicate the series of works in which I recog- 
nise Michelangelo’s sympathy with genuine female 
quality. All the domestic groups, composed of 
women and children, which fill the lunettes and 


HIS DEFECTS AND QUALITIES. 271 


groinings between the windows in the Sistine Chapel, 
have a charming twilight sentiment of family life or 
maternal affection. They are among the loveliest and 
most tranquil of his conceptions. The Madonna 
above the tomb of Julius IJ. cannot be accused of 
masculinity, nor the ecstatic figure of the Rachel 
beneath it. Both of these statues represent what 
Goethe called ‘‘das ewig Weibliche” under a truly 
felt and natural aspect. The Delphian and Erythrean 
Sibyls are superb in their majesty. Again, in those 
numerous designs for Crucifixions, Depositions from 
the Cross, and Pietas, which occupied so much of 
Michelangelo's attention during his old age, we find 
an intense and pathetic sympathy with the sorrows 
of Mary, expressed with noble dignity and a pious 
sense of godhead in the human mother. It will be 
remarked that throughout the cases I have reserved 
as exceptions, it is not woman in her plastic beauty 
and her radiant charm that Michelangelo has ren- 
dered, but woman in her tranquil or her saddened 
and sorrow-stricken moods. What he did not com- 
prehend and could not represent was woman in 
her girlishness, her youthful joy, her physical attrac- 
tiveness, her magic of seduction. 

Michelangelo's women suggest demonic primitive 
beings, composite and undetermined products of the 
human race in evolution, before the specific qualities 
of sex have been eliminated from a general predomi- 
nating mass of masculinity. At their best, they carry 
us into the realm of Lucretian imagination, He 


272 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


could not have incarnated in plastic form Shake- 
speare’s Juliet and Imogen, Dante’s Francesca da 
Rimini, Tasso’s Erminia and Clorinda; but he 
might have supplied a superb illustration to the 
opening lines of the Lucretian epic, where Mars 
lies in the bed of Venus, and the goddess spreads 
her ample limbs above her Roman lover. He might 
have evoked images tallying the vision of primal 
passion in the fourth book of that poem.’ As I have 
elsewhere said, writing about Lucretius: ‘“ ‘There is 
something almost tragic in these sighs and pantings 
and pleasure-throes, these incomplete fruitions of 
souls pent within their frames of flesh, We seem 
to see a race of men and women such as never lived, 
except perhaps in Rome or in the thought of Michel- 
angelo, meeting in leonine embracements that yield 
pain, whereof the climax is, at best, relief from 
rage and respite for a moment from consuming fire. 
There is a life elemental rather than human in those 
mighty limbs; and the passion that twists them on 
the marriage-bed has in it the stress of storms, the 
rampings and roarings of leopards at play. Take 
this single line :— 


et Venus in silvis jungebat corpora amantum. 


What a picture of primeval breadth and vastness! 
The forest is the world, and the bodies of the lovers 
are things natural and unashamed, and Venus is 


1 De Rerwm Natura, iv. 1037-1208. 





RRS 
ae 


StuDY FOR THE MALE NUDE. 





THE MALE TYPE IN MICHELANGELO. 273 


the tyrannous instinct that controls the blood in 
spring.” ? 

What makes Michelangelo’s crudity in his plastic 
treatment of the female form the more remarkable 
is that in his poetry he seems to feel the influence 
of women mystically. I shall have to discuss this 
topic in another place. It is enough here to say 
that, with very few exceptions, we remain in doubt 
whether he is addressing a woman at all. There are 
none of those spontaneous utterances by which a 
man involuntarily expresses the outgoings of his 
heart to a beloved object, the throb of irresistible 
emotion, the physical ache, the sense of wanting, 
the joys and pains, the hopes and fears, the ecsta- 
sies and disappointments, which belong to genuine 
passion. ‘The woman is, for him, an allegory, some- 
thing he has not approached and handled. Of her 
personality we learn nothing. Of her bodily pre- 
sentment, the eyes alone are mentioned ; and the 
eyes are treated as the path to Paradise for souls 
which seek emancipation from the flesh. Raffaello’s 
few and far inferior sonnets vibrate with an intense 
and potent sensibility to this woman or to that. 
Michelangelo's “‘donna”’ might just as well be a 
man; and indeed the poems he addressed to men, 
though they have nothing sensual about them, reveal 
a finer touch in the emotion of the writer. It is 
difficult to connect this vaporous incorporeal “‘donna” 
of the poems with those brawny colossal adult females 

1 Sketches and Studies in Italy, Article on Lucretius, 

VOL. L 8 


274 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


of the statues, unless we suppose that Michelangelo 
remained callous both to the physical attractions 
and the emotional distinction of woman as she 
actually is. 

I have tried to demonstrate that, plastically, he 
did not understand women, and could not reproduce 
their form in art with sympathetic feeling for its 
values of grace, suavity, virginity, and frailty. He 
imported masculine qualities into every female theme 
he handled. The case is different when we turn to 
his treatment of the male figure. It would be im- 
possible to adduce a single instance, out of the 
many hundreds of examples furnished by his work, 
in which a note of femininity has been added to the 
masculine type. He did not think enough of women 
to reverse the process, and create hermaphroditic 
beings like the Apollino of Praxiteles or the S. 
Sebastian of Sodoma. His boys and youths and 
adult men remain, in the truest and the purest sense 
of the word, virile. Yet with what infinite variety, 
with what a deep intelligence of its resources, with 
what inexhaustible riches of enthusiasm and science, 
he played upon the lyre of the male nude! How 
far more fit for purposes of art he felt the man to 
be than the woman is demonstrated, not only by 
his approaching woman from the masculine side, 
but also by his close attention to none but male 
qualities in men. I need not insist or enlarge 
upon this point. The fact is apparent to every one 


1 Except occasionally in the face ; in the body and the limbs, never. 


IDEAL OF FORM: FIRST PERIOD. 275 


with eyes to see. It would be futile to expound 
Michelangelo's fertility in dealing with the motives 
of the male figure as minutely as I judged it neces- 
sary to explain the poverty of his inspiration through 
the female. But it ought to be repeated that, over the 
whole gamut of the scale, from the grace of boyhood, 
through the multiform delightfulness of adolescence 
into the firm force of early manhood, and the sterner 
virtues of adult age, one severe and virile spirit 
controls his fashioning of plastic forms. He even 
exaggerates what is masculine in the male, as he 
caricatures the female by ascribing impossible virility 
to her. But the exaggeration follows here a line of 
mental and moral rectitude. It is the expression of 
his peculiar sensibility to physical structure. 


IX. 


When we study the evolution of Michelangelo’s 
ideal of form, we find at the beginning of his life 
a very short period in which he followed the tradi- 
tions of Donatello and imitated Greek work. The 
seated Madonna in bas-relief and the Giovannino 
belong to this first stage. So does the bas-relief of 
the Centaurs. It soon becomes evident, however, that 
Michelangelo was not destined to remain a continu- 
ator of Donatello’s manner or a disciple of the classics. 
The next period, which includes the Madonna 


276 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


della Febbre, the Bruges Madonna, the Bacchus, the 
Cupid, and the David, is marked by an intense 
search after the truth of Nature. Both Madonnas 
might be criticised for unreality, owing to the enor- 
mous development of the thorax and something arti- 
ficial in the type of face. But all the male figures 
seem to have been studied from the model. ‘There 
is an individuality about the character of each, a 
naturalism, an aiming after realistic expression, 
which separate this group from previous and subse- 
quent works by Buonarroti. ‘Traces of Donatello’s 
influence survive in the treatment of the long large 
hands of David, the cast of features selected for that 
statue, and the working of the feet. Indeed it may 
be said that Donatello continued through life to 
affect the genius of Michelangelo by a kind of sym- 
pathy, although the elder master’s naiveté was soon 
discarded by the younger. 

The second period culminated in the Cartoon 
for the Battle of Pisa. This design appears to 
have fixed the style now known to us as Michel- 
angelesque, and the loss of it is therefore irrepar- 
able. It exercised the consummate science which 
he had acquired, his complete mastery over the 
male nude. It defined his firm resolve to treat 
linear design from the point of view of sculpture 
rather than of painting proper. It settled his deter- 
mination to work exclusively through and by the 
human figure, rejecting all subordinate elements of 
decoration. Had we possessed this epoch-making 


SECOND AND THIRD PERIODS. 277 


masterpiece, we should probably have known Michel- 
angelo’s genius in its flower-period of early ripeness, 
when anatomical learning was still combined with a 
sustained dependence upon Nature. The transition 
from the second to the third stage in this develop- 
ment of form-ideal remains imperfectly explained, 
because the bathers in the Arno were necessary to 
account for the difference between the realistic 
David and the methodically studied genii of the 
Sistine. 

The vault of the Sistine shows Michelangelo’s third 
manner in perfection. He has developed what may 
be called a scheme of the human form. The appar- 
ently small head, the enormous breadth of shoulder, 
the thorax overweighing the whole figure, the finely 
modelled legs, the large and powerful extremities, 
which characterise his style henceforward, culminate 
in Adam, repeat themselves throughout the genii, 
govern the prophets. But Nature has not been 
neglected. Nothing is more remarkable in that vast 
decorative mass of figures than the variety of types 
selected, the beauty and animation of the faces, the 
extraordinary richness, elasticity, and freshness of 
the attitudes presented to the eye. Every period 
of life has been treated with impartial justice, and 
both sexes are adequately handled. ‘The Delphian, 
Erythrean, and Libyan Sibyls display a sublime 
sense of facial beauty. The Eve of the Temptation 
has even something of positively feminine charm. 
This is probably due to the fact that Michelangelo 


278 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


here studied expression and felt the necessity of 
dramatic characterisation in this part of his work. 
He struck each chord of what may be called the 
poetry of figurative art, from the epic cantos of 
Creation, Fall, and Deluge, through the tragic odes 
uttered by prophets and sibyls, down to the lyric 
notes of the genii, and the sweet idyllic strains of 
the groups in the lunettes and spandrels. 

It cannot be said that even here Michelangelo 
felt the female nude as sympathetically as he felt 
the male. ‘The women in the picture of the Deluge 
are colossal creatures, scarcely distinguishable from 
the men except by their huge bosoms. His personal 
sense of beauty finds fullest expression in the genil. 
The variations on one theme of youthful loveliness 
and grace are inexhaustible; the changes rung on 
attitude, and face, and feature are endless. ‘The 
type, as I have said, has already become schematic. 
It is adolescent, but the adolescence is neither 
that of the Greek athlete nor that of the nude 
model. Indeed, it is hardly natural; nor yet is it 
ideal in the Greek sense of that term. The physical 
eracefulness of a slim ephebus was never seized by 
Michelangelo. His Ganymede displays a massive 
trunk and brawny thighs. Compare this with the 
Ganymede of Titian. Compare the Cupid at South 
Kensington with the Praxitelean Genius of the 
Vatican —the Adonis and the Bacchus of the 
Bargello with Hellenic statues. The bulk and 
force of maturity are combined with the smooth- 


ABSTRACT IMAGINATION. 279 


ness of boyhood and with a delicacy of face that 
borders on the feminine. 

It is an arid- region, the region of this mighty 
master’s spirit. There are no heavens and no earth 
or sea in it; no living creatures, forests, flowers ; 
no bright colours, brilliant lights, or cavernous 
darks. In clear grey twilight appear a multitude 
of naked forms, both male and female, yet neither 
male nor female of the actual world; rather the 
brood of an inventive intellect, teeming with pre- 
occupations of abiding thoughts and moods of 
feeling, which become for it incarnate in these 
stupendous figures. It is as though Michelangelo 
worked from the image in his brain outwards to a 
physical presentment supplied by his vast know- 
ledge of life, creating forms proper to his own 
specific concept. Nowhere else in plastic art 
does the mental world peculiar to the master press 
in so immediately, without modification and with- 
out mitigation, upon our sentient imagination. I 
sometimes dream that the inhabitants of the moon 
may be like Michelangelo’s men and women, as I 
feel sure its landscape resembles his conception of 
the material universe. 

What I have called Michelangelo’s third manner, 
the purest manifestation of which is to be found in 
the vault of the Sistine, sustained itself for a period 
of many years. The surviving fragments of sculp- 
ture for the tomb of Julius, especially the Captives 
of the Louvre and the statues in the Sacristy at 


280 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


S. Lorenzo, belong to this stage. A close and inti- 
mate rapport with Nature can be perceived in all the 
work he designed and executed during the pontif- 
cates of Leo and Clement. The artist was at his 
fullest both of mental energy and physical vigour. 
What he wrought now bears witness to his pleni- 
tude of manhood. Therefore, although the type 
fixed for the Sistine prevailed—I mean that gene- 
ralisation of the human form in certain wilfully 
selected proportions, conceived to be ideally beau- 
tiful or necessary for the grand style in vast archi- 
tectonic schemes of decoration—still it is used with 
an exquisite sensitiveness to the pose and structure 
of the natural body, a delicate tact in the defini- 
tion of muscle and articulation, an acute feeling for 
the qualities of flesh and texture. None of the 
creations of this period, moreover, are devoid of 
intense animating emotions and ideas. 

Unluckily, during all the years which intervened 
between the Sistine vault and the Last Judgment, 
Michelangelo was employed upon architectural pro- 
blems and engineering projects, which occupied 
his genius in regions far removed from that of figu- 
rative art. It may, therefore, be asserted, that al- 
though he did not retrograde from want of practice, 
he had no opportunity of advancing further by the 
concentration of his genius on design. ‘This ac- 
counts, I think, for the change in his manner which 
we notice when he began to paint in Rome under 
Pope Paul JII. The fourth stage in his development 





STUDIES FROM THE NUDE. 





THE FOURTH PERIOD. 281 


of form is reached now. He has lost nothing of his 
vigour, nothing of his science. But he has drifted 
away from Nature. All the innumerable figures of 
the Last Judgment, in all their varied attitudes, 
with divers moods of dramatic expression, are dia- 
grams wrought out imaginatively from the stored- 
up resources of a lifetime. It may be argued that 
it was impossible to pose models, in other words, to 
appeal to living men and women, for the foreshorten- 
ings of falling or soaring shapes in that huge drift 
of human beings. This is true; and the strongest 
testimony to the colossal powers of observation 
possessed by Michelangelo is that none of all those 
attitudes are wrong. We may verify them, if we 
take particular pains to do so, by training the sense 
of seeing to play the part of a detective camera.’ 
Michelangelo was gifted with a unique faculty for 
seizing momentary movements, fixing them upon his 
memory, and transferring them to fresco by means 
of his supreme acquaintance with the bony structure 
and the muscular capacities of the human frame. 
Regarded from this point of view, the Last Judg- 
ment was an unparalleled success. As such the 
contemporaries of Buonarroti hailed it. Still, the 
breath of life has exhaled from all those bodies, and 
the tyranny of the schematic ideal of form is felt in 
each of them. Without meaning to be irreverent, 


1 I may refer here to an article I published on “Swiss Athletic 
Sports” in the Fortnightly Review for September 1891, where I have 
handled this topic more at length. 


282 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


we might fancy that two elastic lay-figures, one 
male, the other female, both singularly similar in 
shape, supplied the materials for the total composi- 
tion. Of the dramatic intentions and suggestions 
underlying these plastic and elastic shapes I am 
not now speaking. It is my present business to 
establish the phases through which my master’s 
sense of form passed from its cradle to its grave.! 

In the frescoes of the Cappella Paolina, so ruined 
at this day that we can hardly value them, the 
mechanic manner of the fourth stage seems to reach 
its climax. Ghosts of their former selves, they still 
reveal the poverty of creative and spontaneous inspi- 
ration which presided over their nativity. 


1 A passage from Vasari’s introduction explains Michelangelo’s way 
of dealing with figures in relief and foreshortenings. He says that “ it 
was the divine master’s habit to make little models of clay or wax ; and 
from these, because they keep their position better than live beings, he 
drew the outlines, lights, and shades of his figures” (Vasari, vol. i. 
p. 157). Itis probable that he used this method while designing the 
Last Judgment ; for many postures there are such as no living creature 
could maintain for more than a few seconds. Thus he brought his 
profound knowledge of anatomy and his power as a sculptor into the 
service of painting, and forced the art of painting to the very extreme 
verge of possibility. What strikes us as manneristic in his later fresco- 
work may be attributed to this habit, implying the great man’s wish to 
seize and perpetuate movements of the body beyond the scope of a 
sincere and thorough transcript from the living nude. It is said that 
Correggio adopted the same method for his bold foreshortenings ; and 
we are told that Tintoretto drew from plastic figures suspended 
under artificial lighting. Enthusiastic study of the works produced in 
this way by masters of indubitable genius enabled lesser folk to play 
with the human form in every kind of hazardous attitude, and led 
onward to that decadence with which we connect the names of the 
Macchinesti. 


DRAWINGS IN OLD AGE. 283 


Michelangelo’s fourth manner might be compared 
with that of Milton in “Paradise Regained” and 
“Samson Agonistes.” Both of these great artists 
in old age exaggerate the defects of their qualities. 
Michelangelo’s ideal of line and proportion in the 
human form becomes stereotyped and strained, as 
do Milton’s rhythms and his Latinisms. The gener- 
ous wine of the Bacchus and of ‘‘ Comus,” so intoxi- 
cating in its newness, the same wine in the Sistine 
and “ Paradise Lost,” so overwhelming in its mature 
strength, has acquired an austere aridity. Yet, 
strange to say, amid these autumn stubbles of de- 
clining genius we light upon oases more sweet, 
more tenderly suggestive, than aught the prime pro- 
duced. It is not my business to speak of Milton 
here. I need not recall his ‘‘ Knights of Logres 
and of Lyonesse,” or resume his Kuripidean gar- 
lands showered on Samson’s grave. But, for my 
master Michelangelo, it will suffice to observe that 
all the grace his genius held, refined, of earthly 
erossness quit, appeared, under the dominance of 
this fourth manner, in the mythological subjects he 
composed for Tommaso Cavalieri, and, far more 
nobly, in his countless studies for the celebration 
of Christ’s Passion. The designs bequeathed to us 
from this period are very numerous. They were 
never employed in the production of any monu- 
mental work of sculpture or of painting. For this 
very reason, because they were occasional improvisa- 
tions, preludes, dreams of things to be, they preserve 


284 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


the finest bloom, the Indian summer of his fancy, 
Lovers of Michelangelo must dedicate their latest 
and most loving studies to this phase of his fourth 
manner. 


X. 


If we seek to penetrate the genius of an artist, 
not merely forming a correct estimate of his tech- 
nical ability and science, but also probing his per- 
sonality to the core, as near as this is possible for us 
to do, we ought to give our undivided study to his 
drawings. It is there, and there alone, that we come 
face to face with the real man, in his unguarded 
moments, in his hours of inspiration, in the laborious 
effort to solve a problem of composition, or in the 
happy flow of genial improvisation. Michelangelo 
was wont to maintain that all the arts are included in 
the art of design. Sculpture, painting, architecture, 
he said, are but subordinate branches of draughts- 
manship. And he went so far as to assert that the 
mechanical arts, with engineering and fortification, 
nay, even the minor arts of decoration and costume, 
owe their existence to design. The more we reflect 
upon this apparent paradox, the more shall we feel 
it to be true. At any rate, there are no products 
of human thought and feeling capable of being 
expressed by form which do not find their common 
denominator in a linear drawing. The simplicity of 


a 


VALUE OF ORIGINAL DRAWINGS. 288 


a sketch, the comparative rapidity with which it is 
produced, the concentration of meaning demanded 
by its rigid economy of means, render it more sym- 
bolical, more like the hieroglyph of its maker's mind, 
than any finished work can be. We may discover 
a greater mass of interesting objects in a painted 
picture or a carved statue; but we shall never find 
exactly the same thing, never the involuntary reve- 
lation of the artist’s soul, the irrefutable witness to 
his mental and moral qualities, to the mysteries of 
his genius and to its limitations. 

If this be true of all artists, it is in a peculiar 
sense true of Michelangelo. Great as he was as 
sculptor, painter, architect, he was only perfect 
and impeccable as draughtsman. Inadequate realisa- 
tion, unequal execution, fatigue, satiety, caprice of 
mood, may sometimes be detected in his frescoes 
and his statues; but in design we never find him 
faulty, hasty, less than absolute master over the 
selected realm of thought. His most interesting and 
instructive work remains what he performed with 
pen and chalk in hand. Deeply, therefore, must 
we regret the false modesty which made him 
destroy masses of his drawings, while we have 
reason to be thankful for those marvellous photo- 
graphic processes which nowadays have placed the 
choicest of his masterpieces within the reach of 
every one. 

The following passages from Vasari’s and Condivi’s 
Lives deserve attention by those who approach the 


286 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


study of Buonarroti’s drawings.’ Vasari says: “ His 
powers of imagination were such, that he was fre- 
quently compelled to abandon his purpose, because 
he could not express by the hand those grand 
and sublime ideas which he had conceived in his 
mind ; nay, he has spoiled and destroyed many works 
for this cause; and I know, too, that some short 
time before his death he burnt a large number of his 
designs, sketches, and cartoons, that none might see 
the labours he had endured, and the trials to which 
he had subjected his spirit, in his resolve not to fall 
short of perfection.” I have myself secured some 
drawings by his hand, which were found in Florence, 
and are now in my book of designs, and these, 
although they give evidence of his great genius, yet 
prove also that the hammer of Vulcan was necessary 
to bring Minerva from the head of Jupiter. He 
would construct an ideal shape out of nine, ten, and 
even twelve different heads, for no other purpose 
than to obtain a certain grace of harmony and com- 
position which is not to be found in the natural 
form, and would say that the artist must have his 
measuring tools, not in the hand, but in the eye, 
because the hands do but operate, it is the eye that 
judges ; he pursued the same idea in architecture 
also.” Condivi adds some information regarding his 
extraordinary fecundity and variety of invention: 
1 Vasari, xii. p. 271; Condivi, p. 83. 


2 This is confirmed by the statement of the ambassador Averardo 
Serristori, op. cit., p. 415. 


FOUR GREAT DRAUGHTSMEN. 287 


“He was gifted with a most tenacious memory, the 
power of which was such that, though he painted 
so many thousands of figures, as any one can see, 
he never made one exactly like another or posed in 
the same attitude. Indeed, I have heard him say 
that he never draws a line without remembering 
whether he has drawn it before; erasing any repe- 
tition, when the design was meant to be exposed to 
public view. His force of imagination is also most 
extraordinary. This has been the chief reason why 
he was never quite satisfied with his own work, and 
always depreciated its quality, esteeming that his 
hand failed to attain the idea which he had formed 
within his brain.” 


XI. 


The four greatest draughtsmen of this epoch were 
Lionardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raffaello, and An- 
drea del Sarto. They are not to be reckoned as equals; 
for Lionardo and Michelangelo outstrip the other 
two almost as much as these surpass all lesser crafts- 
men. Each of the four men expressed his own 
peculiar vision of the world with pen, or chalk, or 
metal point, finding the unique inevitable line, the 
exact touch and quality of stroke, which should pre- 
sent at once a lively transcript from real Nature, 
and a revelation of the artist’s particular way of feel- 


288 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


ing Nature. In Lionardo it is a line of subtlety and 
infinite suggestiveness ; in Michelangelo it compels 
attention, and forcibly defines the essence of the 
object ; in Raffaello it carries melody, the charm of 
an unerring rhythm ; in Andrea it seems to call for 
tone, colour, atmosphere, and makes their presence 
| felt. Raffaello was often faulty : even in the wonder- 
ful pen-drawing of two nudes he sent to Albrecht 
Diirer as a sample of his skill, we blame the knees 
and ankles of his models. Lionardo was sometimes 
wilful, whimsical, seduced by dreamland, like a god- 
born amateur. Andrea allowed his facility to lead 
him into languor, and lacked passion. Michel- 
angelo's work shows none of these shortcomings ; it 
is always technically faultless, instinct with passion, 
supereminent in force. But we crave more of grace, 
of sensuous delight, of sweetness, than he chose, 
or perhaps was able, to communicate. We should 
welcome a little more of human weakness if he 
gave a little more of divine suavity. 
Michelangelo’s style of design is that of a sculptor, 
Andrea’s of a colourist, Lionardo’s of a curious 
student, Raffaello’s of a musician and improvisatore. 
These distinctions are not merely fanciful, nor based 
on what we know about the men in their careers. 
We feel similar distinctions in the case of all great 
draughtsmen. ‘Titian’s chalk-studies, Fra Bartolom- 
meo’s, so singularly akin to Andrea del Sarto’s, 
Giorgione’s pen-and-ink sketch for a Lucretia, are 
seen at once by their richness and blurred outlines 


NOILOPHYOSAY FHL 


uod AGALS 








THE ARTIST IN HIS DRAWINGS. 289 


to be the work of colourists.’ Signorelli’s transcripts 
from the nude, remarkably similar to those of 
Michelangelo, reveal a sculptor rather than a painter.’ 
Botticelli, with all his Florentine precision, shows 
that, like Lionardo, he was a seeker and a visionary 
in his anxious feeling after curve and attitude. 
Mantegna seems to be graving steel or cutting into 
marble. It is easy to apply this analysis in succes- 
sion to any draughtsman who has style. To do so 
would, however, be superfluous: we should only be 
enforcing what is a truism to all intelligent students 
of art—namely, that each individual stamps his own 
specific quality upon his handiwork ; reveals even in 
the neutral region of design his innate preference 
for colour or pure form as a channel of expression ; 
betrays the predominance of mental energy or sensu- 
ous charm, of scientific curiosity or plastic force, of 
passion or of tenderness, which controls his nature. 
This inevitable and unconscious revelation of the 
man in art-work strikes us as being singularly modern. 
We do not apprehend it to at all the same extent 
in the sculpture of the ancients, whether it be that 
our sympathies are too remote from Greek and 
Roman ways of feeling, or whether the ancients 
really conceived art more collectively in masses, less 
individually as persons. 


1 Two heads of old men by Titian in the Louvre; Fra Bartolommeo’s 
cartoons in the Accademia, and his red-chalk drawings in the Utiizi at 
Florence ; Giorgione’s Lucretia in the Uffizi. 

2 Two studies of men in black chalk in the Louvre. 


VOL. I. T 


290 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


No master exhibits this peculiarly modern quality 
more decisively than Michelangelo, and nowhere is 
the personality of his genius, what marks him off and 
separates him from all fellow-men, displayed with 
fuller emphasis than in his drawings. To use the 
words of a penetrative critic,” from whom it is a 
pleasure to quote : “The thing about Michelangelo is 
this; he is not, so to say, at the head of a class, but 
he stands apart by himself: he is not possessed of 
a skill which renders him unapproached or unap- 
proachable ; but rather, he is of so unique an order, 
that no other artist whatever seems to suggest com- 
parison with him.” Mr. Selwyn Image goes on to 
define in what a true sense the words “creator” 
and ‘“‘creative” may be applied to him: how the 
shows and appearances of the world were for him 
but hieroglyphs of underlying ideas, with which his 
soul was familiar, and from which he worked again 
outward; “his learning and skill in the arts sup- 
plying to his hand such large and adequate symbols 
of them as are otherwise beyond attainment.” This, 
in a very difficult and impalpable region of esthetic 
criticism, is finely said, and accords with Michel- 
angelo’s own utterances upon art and beauty in his 
poems. Dwelling like a star apart, communing 
with the eternal ideas, the permanent relations of 
the universe, uttering his inmost thoughts about 
these mysteries through the vehicles of science and 


1 Mr. Selwyn Image, “On the Distinctive Genius of J. F. Millet,” 
Century Guild Hobby Horse, October 1891. 


VEHICLES EMPLOYED BY DRAUGHTSMEN. 291 


of art, for which he was so singularly gifted, Michel- 
angelo, in no loose or trivial sense of that phrase, 
proved himself to be a creator. He introduces us to 
a world seen by no eyes except his own, compels 
us to become familiar with forms unapprehended by 
our senses, accustoms us to breathe a rarer and more 
fiery atmosphere than we were born into. 

The vehicles used by Michelangelo in his designs 
were mostly pen and chalk. He employed both a 
sharp-nibbed pen of some kind, and a broad flexible 
reed, according to the exigencies of his subject or 
the temper of his mood. The chalk was either red 
or black, the former being softer than the latter. I 
cannot remember any instances of those chiaroscuro 
washes which Raffaello handled in so masterly a 
manner, although Michelangelo frequently combined 
bistre shading with pen outlines. In lke manner he 
does not seem to have favoured the metal point upon 
prepared paper, with which Lionardo produced un- 
rivalled masterpieces. Some drawings, where the 
yellow outline bites into a parchment paper, blistering 
at the edges, suggest a rusty metal in the instrument. 
We must remember, however, that the inks of that 
period were frequently corrosive, as is proved by the 
state of many documents now made illegible through 
the gradual attrition of the paper by mineral acids. 
It is also not impossible that artists may have already 
invented what we call steel pens. Sarpi, in the seven- 
teenth century, thanks a correspondent for the gift of 
one of these mechanical devices. Speaking broadly, 


292 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


the reed and the quill, red and black chalk, or matita, 
were the vehicles of Michelangelo's expression as 
a draughtsman. I have seen very few examples of 
studies heightened with white chalk, and none pro- 
duced in the fine Florentine style of Ghirlandajo 
by white chalk alone upon a dead-brown surface. 
In this matter it is needful to speak with diffidence ; 
for the sketches of our master are so widely scat- 
tered that few students can have examined the whole 
of them ; and photographic reproductions, however 
admirable in their fidelity to outline, do not always 
give decisive evidence regarding the materials em- 
ployed.” 

One thing seems manifest. Michelangelo avoided 
those mixed methods with which Lionardo, the 


1 It is interesting to relate here what Vasari, in his introduction 
(vol. i. p. 154), says about the materials used by draughtsmen in his 
lifetime. They are as follows: 1, charcoal; 2, a red stone, brought 
from German quarries; 3, a black stone, of the same description, 
brought from France ; 4, a pen or metal point upon prepared ground 
of different colours; 5, washes of white lead, with a gummy medium 
applied to dark paper, the modelling being produced by simple high 
lights; 6, pen and ink. He does not mention matita in this place by 
name—that is an iron ore of red or brown hue, and is probably the 
stone alluded to above under numbers 2 and 3. Our prepared chalks 
do not appear to have been invented, and only faint approaches toward 
the pastille polychrome of modern art can be found in some of Lionardo’s 
experiments. We cannot affirm that black-lead was a vehicle in use 
under its present form of pencil. Yet, if we may include it in the 
general description of matita, this was perhaps known to draughtsmen 
of the sixteenth century. Some written memoranda and rough jottings 
of design by Michelangelo indicate it to the eye. In order to be fully 
informed upon the subject, it would be necessary to submit portions 
of original drawings to chemical analysis, So far as I know, this has 
not yet been attempted, 


PEN AND INK. 293 


magician, wrought wonders. He preferred an in- 
strument which could be freely, broadly handled, 
inscribing form in strong plain strokes upon the 
candid paper. The result attained, whether wrought 
by bold lines, or subtly hatched, or finished with the 
utmost delicacy of modulated shading, has always 
been traced out conscientiously and firmly, with one 
pointed stylus (pen, chalk, or matita), chosen for the 
purpose. As I have said, it is the work of a sculptor, 
accustomed to wield chisel and mallet upon marble, 
rather than that of a painter, trained to secure effects 
by shadowings and glazings. 

It is possible, I think, to define, at least with some 
approximation to precision, Michelangelo’s employ- 
ment of his favourite vehicles for several purposes and 
at different periods of his life. A broad-nibbed pen 
was used almost invariably in making architectural 
designs of cornices, pilasters, windows, also in plans 
for military engineering. Sketches of tombs and edi- 
fices, intended to be shown to patrons, were partly 
finished with the pen; and here we find a subor- 
dinate and very limited use of the brush in shading. 
Such performances may be regarded as products 
of the workshop rather than as examples of the 
artist's mastery. The style of them is often conven- 
tional, suggesting the intrusion of a pupil or the 
deliberate adoption: of an office mannerism. The 
pen plays a foremost part in all the greatest and 
most genial creations of his fancy when it worked 
energetically in preparation for sculpture or for 


204 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


fresco. ‘The Louvre is rich in masterpieces of this 
kind—the fiery study of a David; the heroic figures 
of two male nudes, hatched into stubborn salience 
like pieces of carved wood; the broad conception of 
the Madonna at S. Lorenzo in her magnificent repose 
and passionate cascade of fallen draperies; the re- 
pulsive but superabundantly powerful profile of a 
goat-like faun. These, and the stupendous studies 
of the Albertina Collection at Vienna, including 
the supine man with thorax violently raised, are 
worked with careful hatchings, stroke upon stroke, 
effecting a suggestion of plastic roundness. But 
we discover quite a different use of the pen in 
some large simple outlines of seated female figures 
at the Louvre ; in thick, almost muddy, studies at 
Vienna, where the form emerges out of oft-repeated 
sodden blotches; in the grim light and shade, the 
rapid suggestiveness of the dissection scene at 
Oxford. The pen in the hand of Michelangelo was 
the tool by means of which he realised his most 
trenchant conceptions and his most picturesque im- 
pressions. In youth and early manhood, when his 
genius was still vehement, it seems to have been his 
favourite vehicle. 

The use of chalk grew upon him in later life, 
possibly because he trusted more to his memory 
now, and loved the dreamier softer medium for utter- 
ing his fancies. Black chalk was employed for rapid 
notes of composition, and also for the more elaborate 
productions of his pencil. To this material we owe 





STUDY FOR MADONNA—LOUVRE. 





BLACK AND RED CHALK. 295 


the head of Horror which he gave to Gherardo Perini 
(in the Uffizi), the Phaethon, the Tityos, the Gany- 
mede he gave to ‘l’ommaso Cavalieri (at Windsor). It 
is impossible to describe the refinements of modu- 
lated shading and the precision of predetermined 
outlines by means of which these incomparable draw- 
ings have been produced. ‘They seem to melt and 
to escape inspection, yet they remain fixed on the 
memory as firmly as forms in carven basalt. 

The whole series of designs for Christ’s Crucifixion 
and Deposition from the Cross are executed in chalk, 
sometimes black, but mostly red. It is manifest, 
upon examination, that they are not studies from 
the model, but thoughts evoked and shadowed forth 
on paper. Their perplexing multiplicity and subtle 
variety—as though a mighty improvisatore were pre- 
luding again and yet again upon the clavichord to 
find his theme, abandoning the search, renewing it, 
altering the key, changing the accent—prove that 
this continued seeking with the crayon after form 
and composition was carried on in solitude and ab- 
stract moments. Incomplete as the designs may be, 
they reveal Michelangelo’s loftiest dreams and purest 
visions. ‘The nervous energy, the passionate grip 
upon the subject, shown in the pen-drawings, are 
absent here. ‘These qualities are replaced by medi- 
tation and an air of rapt devotion. The drawings 
for the Passion might be called the prayers and pious 
thoughts of the stern master. 

Red chalk he used for some of his most brilliant 


296 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


conceptions. It is not necessary to dwell upon the 
bending woman’s head at Oxford, or the torso of the 
lance-bearer at Vienna. Let us confine our atten- 
tion to what is perhaps the most pleasing and most 
perfect of all Michelangelo’s designs—the ‘“ Bersa- 
glio,” or the “Arcieri,” in the Queen’s collection at 
Windsor. 

It is a group of eleven naked men and one woman, 
fiercely footing the air, and driving shafts with all 
their might to pierce a classical terminal figure, 
whose face, like that of Pallas, and broad breast are 
guarded by a spreading shield The draughtsman 
has indicated only one bow, bent with fury by an 
old man in the background. Yet all the actions 
proper to archery are suggested by the violent ges- 
tures and strained sinews of the crowd. At the foot 
of the terminal statue, Cupid lies asleep upon his 
wings, with idle bow and quiver. Two little genii 
of love, in the background, are lighting up a fire, 
puffing its flames, as though to drive the archers 
onward. Energy and ardour, impetuous movement 
and passionate desire, could not be expressed with 
greater force, nor the tyranny of some blind impulse 
be more imaginatively felt. The allegory seems to 
imply that happiness is not to be attained, as human 
beings mostly strive to seize it, by the fierce force of 
the carnal passions. It is the contrast between celes- 
tial love asleep in lustful souls, and vulgar love in- 
flaming tyrannous appetites :1— 


1 Rime, Sonnet No. iii, 


THE BERSAGLIO AT WINDSOR. 297 


The one love soars, the other downward tends : 
The soul lights this, while that the senses stir, 
And still lust’s arrow at base quarry flies. 


This magnificent design was engraved during 
Buonarroti’s lifetime, or shortly Risen by Si 
cold Beatrizet. Some follower of Raffaello used the 
print for a fresco in the Palazzo Borghese at Rome. 
It forms one of the series in which Raffaello’s mar- 
riage of Alexander and Roxana is painted. This 
has led some critics to ascribe the drawing itself 
to the Urbinate. Indeed, at first sight, one might 
almost conjecture that the original hcl study was 
a genuine work of Raffaello, aiming at rivalry with 
Michelangelo’s manner. The calm beauty of the 
statue's classic profile, the refinement of all the faces, 
the exquisite delicacy of the adolescent forms, and 
the dominant veiling of strength with grace, are not 
precisely Michelangelesque. The technical execu- 
tion of the design, however, makes its attribution 
certain. Well as Raffaello could draw, he could not 
draw like this. He was incapable of rounding and 
modelling the nude with those soft stipplings and 
granulated shadings which bring the whole sur- 
face out like that of a bas-relief in polished marble. 
His own drawing for Alexander and Roxana, in red 
chalk, and therefore an excellent subject for com- 
parison with the Arcieri, is hatched all over in 
straight lines; a method adopted by Michelangelo 
when working with the pen, but, so far as I am 
aware, never, or very rarely, used when he was hand- 


298 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


ling chalk. ‘The style of this design and its exquisite 
workmanship correspond exactly with the finish of 
the Cavalieri series at Windsor. The paper, more- 
over, is indorsed in Michelangelo’s handwriting with 
a memorandum bearing the date April 12, 1530. We 
have then in this masterpiece of draughtsmanship an 
example, not of Raffaello in a Michelangelising mood, 
but of Michelangelo for once condescending to sur- 
pass Raffaello on his own ground of loveliness and 
rhythmic grace.’ 


1 Morelli, in his book upon the Borghese and Doria Galleries, suggests 
that the drawing of Alexander and Roxana in question above was 
really a work of Sodoma’s, If that be so, it does not invalidate the 
argument, 


‘IMaLOUW FH, 








CHAPTER VII. 


t. Death of Julius, February 21, 1 513.—Election of Leo X.—2, Michel- 
angelo works at the tomb.—His house at the Macello de’ Corvi.— 
Visit of Signorelli to his workshop,—The Risen Christ of 8. Maria 
sopra Minerva ordered.—Michelangelo’s dislike in later life to be 
addressed as sculptor.—His sense of pedigree and family dignity.— 
3. Leo begins to employ him in 1515.—The Pope’s visit to Florence 
in November, and again at Christmas.—He conceives the idea of 
finishing the Church of S. Lorenzo.—Plans for the fagade are pre- 
pared.—4. The work was to be carried out by several artists under 
Michelangelo’s direction.—This scheme falls through.—Angry letter 
of Jacopo Sansovino.— Uncertainty about M ichelangelo’s design for 
the fagade.—It would certainly have combined vast masses of sculp- 
ture with the architecture.—s, Michelangelo at Carrara quarrying 
marble during 1516.—Iilness of Lodovico.—Makes a model for the 
fagade,—Enthusiasm for his work.—At Carrara during 1517.—QGoes 
to Rome at the beginning of 1518.—The Medici determine to work 
the quarries of Pietra Santa.— Michelangelo is set to making roads 
there.—Quarrel with the Marquis of Massa Carrara.—6. Project for 
bringing Dante’s bones to Florence and erecting him a monument. 
—Michelangelo’s profound study of Dante-—Two sonnets.—His 
designs for the “ Divine Comedy.”—Donato Giannotti’s Dialogue.— 
7- Michelangelo’s wasted time and energy in the marble quarries, — 
Purchase of a house at Florence in the Via Mozza.—Moves between 
Florence and Pietra Santa.—His workman Pietro Urbano.—The 
correspondence with Sebastiano del Piombo begins.—Contemporary 
opinion regarding Michelangelo’s violence of temper and savage 
manners. — 8, A record of March 10, 1520, shows that Michel- 
angelo’s contracts for the fagade of S. Lorenzo were cancelled.— 
He complained of having wasted three years, beside suffering con- 
siderable money losses,—Death of Raffaello.—The Hall of Constan- 
tine.—Michelangelo writes to Rome in favour of Sebastiano.— 
Intrigues among the painters at the Vatican.—9. Weakness and 
dejection of Michelangelo,—Project for the new sacristy, March 


1521.—Cardinal Giulio de’ MediciitThe Risen Christ sent to 
299 


300 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Rome under Pietro Urbano’s care in the autumn of 1521.—Urbano 
mishandles it.—History of the statue.—The generosity of Metello 
Varj.—Criticism of the work. 


i 


JuLius died upon the 21st of February 1513. “A 
prince,” says Guicciardini, “of inestimable courage 
and tenacity, but headlong, and so extravagant in 
the schemes he formed, that his own prudence and 
moderation had less to do with shielding him from 
ruin than the discord of sovereigns and the circum- 
stances of the times in Europe: worthy, in all truth, 
of the highest glory had he been a secular poten- 
tate, or if the pains and anxious thought he em- 
ployed in augmenting the temporal greatness of the 
Church by war had been devoted to her spiritual 
welfare in the arts of peace.” 

Italy rejoiced when Giovanni de’ Medici was 
selected to succeed him, with the title of Leo X. 
‘Venus ruled in Rome with Alexander, Mars with 
Julius, now Pallas enters on her reign with Leo.” 
Such was the tenor of the epigrams which greeted 
Leo upon his triumphal progress to the Lateran. It 
was felt that a Pope of the house of Medici would be 
a patron of arts and letters, and it was hoped that 
the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent might restore 
the equilibrium of power in Italy. Leo X. has en- 
joyed a greater fame than he deserved. Extolled 
as an Augustus in his lifetime, he left his name to 
what is called the golden age of Italian culture. 


LEO xX. 301 


Yet he cannot be said to have raised any first-rate 
men of genius, or to have exercised a very wise 
patronage over those whom Julius brought forward. 
Michelangelo and Raffaello were in the full swing 
of work when Leo claimed their services. We shall 
see how he hampered the rare gifts of the former 
by employing him on uncongenial labours; and it 
was no great merit to give a free rein to the inex- 
haustible energy of Raffaello. The project of a new 
S. Peter's belonged to Julius. Leo only continued 
the scheme, using such assistants as the times 
provided after Bramante’s death in 1514. Julius 
instinctively selected men of soaring and audacious 
genius, who were capable of planning on a colossal 
scale. Leo delighted in the society of clever people, 
poetasters, petty scholars, lutists, and buffoons. 
Rome owes no monumental work to his inventive 
brain, and literature no masterpiece to his discri- 
mination. Ariosto, the most brilliant poet of the 
Renaissance, returned in disappointment from the 
Vatican. ‘‘ When I went to Rome and kissed the 
foot of Leo,” writes the ironical satirist, ‘he bent 
down from the holy chair, and took my hand and 
saluted me on both cheeks. Besides, he made me 
free of half the stamp-dues I was bound to pay ; 
and then, breast full of hope, but smirched with 
mud, I retired and took my supper at the Ram.” 

The words which Leo is reported to have spoken 
to his brother Giuliano when he heard the news of 
his election, express the character of the man and 


302 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


mark the difference between his ambition and that 
of Julius. ‘‘ Let us enjoy the Papacy, since God has 
given it us.” ‘To enjoy life, to squander the treasures 
of the Church on amusements, to feed a rabble of 
flatterers, to contract enormous debts, and to disturb 
the peace of Italy, not for some vast scheme of eccle- 
siastical aggrandisement, but in order to place the 
princes of his family on thrones, that was Leo’s 
conception of the Papal privileges and duties. The 
portraits of the two Popes, both from the hand 
of Raffaello, are eminently characteristic. Julius, 
bent, white-haired, and emaciated, has the nervous 
glance of a passionate and energetic temperament. 
Leo, heavy-jawed, dull-eyed, with thick lips and a 
brawny jowl, betrays the coarser fibre of a sensualist. 


ibe 


We have seen already that Julius, before his death, 
provided for his monument being carried out upon 
a reduced scale. Michelangelo entered into a new 
contract with the executors, undertaking to finish 
the work within the space of seven years from the 
date of the deed, May 6, 1513.1 He received in 
several payments, during that year and the years 
1514, 1515, 1516, the total sum of 6100 golden 
ducats.* This proves that he must have pushed the 

1 Lettere, Contratti, No. xi. p. 635. 2 Lettere, Ricordi, p. 564. 


LETTER ABOUT SIGNORELLI. 303 


various operations connected with the tomb vigor- 
ously forward, employing numerous workpeople, 
and ordering supplies of marble.* In fact, the 
greater part of what remains to us of the unfinished 
monument may be ascribed to this period of com- 
paratively uninterrupted labour. Michelangelo had 
his workshop in the Macello de’ Corvi, but we 
know very little about the details of his life there. 
His correspondence happens to be singularly scanty 
between the years 1513 and 1516. One letter, 
however, written in May 1518, to the Capitano of 
Cortona throws a ray of light upon this barren tract 
of time, and introduces an artist of eminence, whose 
intellectual affinity to Michelangelo will always re- 
main a matter of interest.? ‘“‘ While I was at Rome, 
in the first year of Pope Leo, there came the Master 
Luca Signorelli of Cortona, painter. I met him one 
day near Monte Giordano, and he told me that he 
was come to beg something from the Pope, I forget 
what: he had run the risk of losing life and limb 
for his devotion to the house of Medici, and now it 
seemed they did not recognise him: and so forth, 
saying many things I have forgotten.’ After these 
discourses, he asked me for forty giulios [a coin 


1 Condivi (p. 43) expressly states that he “engaged many masters 
from Florence.” 

2 Lettere, No. cccliv. 

3 This incident illustrates what Ariosto writes in the 4th Satire about 
the people who persecuted Leo, when he was made Pope, with claims 
for service rendered and devotion shown during the exile of the Medici, 
Lines 154-168, 


304 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


equal in value to the more modern paolo, and worth 
perhaps eight shillings of present money], and 
told me where to send them to, at the house of a 
shoemaker, his lodgings. I not having the money 
about me, promised to send it, and did so by the 
hand of a young man in my service, called Silvio, 
who is still alive and in Rome, I believe. After the 
lapse of some days, perhaps because his business 
with the Pope had failed, Messer Luca came to my 
house in the Macello de’ Corvi, the same where I 
live now, and found me working on a marble statue, 
four cubits in height, which has the hands bound 
behind the back, and bewailed himself with me, 
and begged another forty, saying that he wanted 
to leave Rome. I went up to my bedroom, and 
brought the money down in the presence of a 
Bolognese maid I kept, and I think the Silvio 
above mentioned was also there. When Luca got 
the cash, he went away, and I have never seen 
him since; but I remember complaining to him, 
because I was out of health and could not work, 
and he said: ‘Have no fear, for the angels from 
heaven will come to take you in their arms and aid 
you.’ ’’ This is in several ways an interesting docu- 
ment. It brings vividly before our eyes magnificent 
expensive Signorelli and his meanly living com- 
rade, each of them mighty masters of a terrible 
and noble style, passionate lovers of the nude, de- 
voted to masculine types of beauty, but widely and 
profoundly severed by differences in their personal 


COMMISSION FOR A MARBLE CHRIST. 305 


tastes and habits.’ It also gives us a glimpse into 
Michelangelo’s workshop at the moment when he 
was blocking out one of the bound Captives at the 
Louvre. It seems from what follows in the letter 
that Michelangelo had attempted to recover the 
money through his brother Buonarroto, but that 
Signorelli refused to acknowledge his debt. The 
Capitano wrote that he was sure it had been dis- 
charged. ‘‘That,” adds Michelangelo, “is the same 
as calling me the biggest blackguard; and so I 
should be, if I wanted to get back what had been 
already paid. But let your Lordship think what 
you like about it, I am bound to get the money, and 
so I swear.” The remainder of the autograph is torn 
and illegible; it seems to wind up with a threat. 
The records of this period are so scanty that every 
detail acquires a certain importance for Michelangelo’s 
biographer. By a deed executed on the 14th of June 
1514, we find that he contracted to make a figure of 
Christ in marble, “life-sized, naked, erect, with a 
cross in his arms, and in such attitude as shall seem 
best to Michelangelo.”* The persons who ordered 
the statue were Bernardo Cencio (a Canon of S. 
Peter's), Mario Scappucci, and Metello Varj dei 
Porcari, a Roman of ancient blood. They under- 
took to pay 200 golden ducats for the work; and 


1 See Vasari’s Lefe of Signorellt, who was a relative of his, for the 
grand train of life he led, and also for Michelangelo’s addiction to his 
manner. Vol, vi. pp. 147, 142. 

2 Lettere, Contratti, No. xiv. 

VOL. I. U 


306 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Michelangelo promised to finish it within the space 
of four years, when it was to be placed in the Church 
of S. Maria sopra Minerva. Metello Varj, though 
mentioned last in the contract, seems to have been 
the man who practically gave the commission, and 
to whom Michelangelo was finally responsible for its 
performance. He began to hew it from a block, and 
discovered black veins in the working. ‘This, then, 
was thrown aside, and a new marble had to be 
attacked. The statue, now visible at the Minerva, 
was not finished until the year 1521, when we shall 
have to return to it again. 

There is a point of some interest in the wording 
of this contract, on which, as facts to dwell upon are 
few and far between at present, I may perhaps allow 
myself to digress. The master is here described as 
Michelangelo (di Lodovico) Simont, Scultore. Now 
Michelangelo always signed his own letters Michel- 
angelo Buonarroti, although he addressed the mem- 
bers of his family by the surname of Simoni. ‘This 
proves that the patronymic usually given to the house 
at large was still Simoni, and that Michelangelo him- 
self acknowledged that name in a legal document. 
The adoption of Buonarroti by his brother’s children 
and descendants may therefore be ascribed to usage 
ensuing from the illustration of their race by so re- 
nowned aman. It should also be observed that at 
this time Michelangelo is always described in deeds 
as sculptor, and that he frequently signs with Michel- 
angelo, Scultore. Later on in life he changed his 


FAMILY PRIDE. 307 


views. He wrote in 1548 to his nephew Lionardo :! 
“Tell the priest not to write to me again as Michel- 
angelo the sculptor, for I am not known here except 
as Michelangelo Buonarroti. Say, too, that if a citi- 
zen of Florence wants to have an altar-piece painted, 
he must find some painter; for I was never either 
sculptor or painter in the way of one who keeps a 
shop. I have always avoided that, for the honour 
of my father and my brothers. True, I have served 
three Popes; but that was a matter of necessity.” 
Earlier, in 1543, he had written to the same effect : 2 
“When you correspond with me, do not use the 
superscription Michelangelo Simoni, nor sculptor ; it 
is enough to put Michelangelo Buonarroti, for that 
is how I am known here.” On another occasion, 
advising his nephew what surname the latter ought 
to adopt, he says:* “I should certainly use Simoni, 
and if the whole (that is, the whole list of patrony- 
mics in use at Florence) is too long, those who 
cannot read it may leave it alone.” These com- 
munications prove that, though he had come to be 
known as Buonarroti, he did not wish the family to 
drop their old surname of Simoni. The reason was 
that he believed in their legendary descent from the 
Counts of Canossa through a Podesta of Florence, 
traditionally known as Simone da Canossa. This 


1 Lettere, No. cxcix. 2 Lettere, No. exlvii. 

® Lettere, No. clxxxviii, date December 17, 1547. Compare No. 
elxxii., December 1546, where he insists on Lionardo’s using the full 
name. He wanted him to write Lionardo di Buonarroto Buonarroti 
Simons. 


308 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


opinion had been confirmed in 1520, as we have 
seen above, by a letter he received from the 
Conte Alessandro da Canossa, addressing him as 
“Honoured kinsman.” In the correspondence with 
Lionardo, Michelangelo alludes to this act of re- 
cognition :* ‘ You will find a letter from the Conte 
Alessandro da Canossa in the book of contracts. He 
came to visit me at Rome, and treated me like a 
relative. Take care of it.” The dislike expressed 
by Michelangelo to be called sculptor, and addressed 
upon the same terms as other artists, arose from a keen 
sense of his nobility. The feeling emerges frequently 
in his letters between 1540 and 1550. I will give 
a specimen:* “As to the purchase of a house, I 
repeat that you ought to buy one of honourable 
condition, at 1500 or 2000 crowns; and it ought to 
be in our quarter (Santa Croce), if possible. I say 
this, because an honourable mansion in the city 
does a family great credit. It makes more impres- 
sion than farms in the country; and we are truly 
burghers, who claim a very noble ancestry. I always 
strove my utmost to resuscitate our house, but I had 
not brothers able to assist me. ‘Try then to do what 
I write you, and make Gismondo come back to live 
in Florence, so that I may not endure the shame of 
hearing it said here that I have a brother at Settig- 
nano who trudges after oxen. One day, when I 
find the time, I will tell you all about our origin, 
and whence we sprang, and when we came to Flo- 

1 Lettere, No. cxe. 2 Lettere, No. clxxi. date December 4, 1546. 


MICHELANGELO’S SENSE OF DIGNITY. = 309 


rence. Perhaps you know nothing about it; still 
we ought not to rob ourselves of what God gave us.” 
The same feeling runs through the letters he wrote 
Lionardo about the choice of a wife. One example 
will suffice:* ‘‘I believe that in Florence there are 
many noble and poor families with whom it would 
be a charity to form connections. If there were no 
dower, there would also be no arrogance. Pay no 
heed should people say you want to ennoble your- 
self, since it is notorious that we are ancient citizens 
of Florence, and as noble as any other house.” 
Michelangelo, as we know now, was mistaken in 
accepting his supposed connection with the illus- 
trious Counts of Canossa, whose castle played so 
conspicuous a part in the struggle between Hilde- 
brand and the Empire, and who were imperially allied 
through the connections of the Countess Matilda. 
Still he had tradition to support him, confirmed by 
the assurance of the head of the Canossa family. 
Nobody could accuse him of being a snob or par- 
venu. He lived like a poor man, indifferent to 
dress, establishment, and personal appearances. Yet 
he prided himself upon his ancient birth; and since 
the Simoni had been indubitably noble for several 
generations, there was nothing despicable in his 
desire to raise his kinsfolk to their proper station. 
Almost culpably careless in all things that concerned 
his health and comfort, he spent his earnings for the 
welfare of his brothers, in order that an honourable 
1 Lettere, No. ccx., date February 1, 1549. 


310 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


posterity might carry on the name he bore, and which 
he made illustrious. We may smile at his peevish- 
ness in repudiating the title of sculptor after bear- 
ing it through so many years of glorious labour ; 
but when he penned the letter I have quoted, he 
was the supreme artist of Italy, renowned as painter, 
architect, military engineer; praised as poet; be- 
friended with the best and greatest of his con- 
temporaries ; recognised as unique, not only in the 
art of sculpture. If he felt some pride of race, we 
cannot blame the plain-liver and high-thinker, who, 
robbing himself of luxuries and necessaries even, 
enabled his kinsmen to maintain their rank among 
folk gently born and nobly nurtured.? 


III. 


In June 1515 Michelangelo was still working at the 
tomb of Julius. But a letter to Buonarroto shows 
that he was already afraid of being absorbed for 
other purposes by Leo:* “I am forced to put great 
strain upon myself this summer in order to complete 
my undertaking; for I think that I shall soon be 
obliged to enter the Pope’s service. For this reason, 
I have bought some twenty migliaia [measure of 

1 A glance at the pedigree shows how the Simoni came to be im- 


poverished after the death of Lodovico’s grandfather. 
? Lettere, No. xcvii., date June 16, 1515. 


LEO’S MISUSE OF MICHELANGELO. 311 


weight] of brass to cast certain figures.” ‘The monu- 
ment then was so far advanced that, beside having a 
good number of the marble statues nearly finished, 
he was on the point of executing the bronze reliefs 
which filled their interspaces. We have also reason 
to believe that the architectural basis forming the 
foundation of the sepulchre had been brought well 
forward, since it is mentioned in the next ensuing 
contracts. 

Just at this point, however, when two or three 
years of steady labour would have sufficed to termin- 
ate this mount of sculptured marble, Leo diverted 
Michelangelo’s energies from the work, and wasted 
them in schemes that came to nothing. When 
Buonarroti penned that sonnet in which he called 
the Pope his Medusa, he might well have been 
thinking of Leo, though the poem ought probably 
to be referred to the earlier pontificate of Julius. 
Certainly the Medici did more than the Della Rovere 
to paralyse his power and turn the life within him 
into stone. Writing to Sebastiano del Piombo in 
1521, Michelangelo shows how fully he was aware 
of this.. He speaks of “the three years I have 
lost.” 

A meeting had been arranged for the late autumn 
of 1515 between Leo X. and Francis I. at Bologna. 
The Pope left Rome early in November, and reached 
Florence on the 30th. The whole city burst into a 
tumult of jubilation, shouting the Medicean cry of 


1 Lettere, No. ccclxxiv. 


312 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


“Palle” as Leo passed slowly through the streets, 
raised in his pontifical chair upon the shoulders of 
his running footmen. Buonarroto wrote a long and 
interesting account of this triumphal entry to his 
brother in Rome.’ He describes how a procession 
was formed by the Pope’s court and guard and the 
gentlemen of Florence. ‘Among the rest, there 
went a bevy of young men, the noblest in our 
commonwealth, all dressed alike with doublets of 
violet satin, holding gilded staves in their hands. 
They paced before the Papal chair, a brave sight to 
see. And first there marched his guard, and then 
his grooms, who carried him aloft beneath a rich 
canopy of brocade, which was sustained by members 
of the College,’ while round about the chair walked 
the Signory.” The procession moved onward to the 
Church of S. Maria del Fiore, where the Pope stayed 
to perform certain ceremonies at the high altar, after 
which he was carried to his apartments at S. Maria 
Novella.* Buonarroto was one of the Priors during 
this month, and accordingly he took an official part 
in all the entertainments and festivities, which con- 
tinued for three days. On the 3rd of December Leo 
left Florence for Bologna, where Francis arrived upon 


1 Gotti, i. p. 104. 

2 Collegt. These were the sixteen banner-bearers of the Companies, 
and twelve worthies chosen to represent the quarters of the town, who 
were associated as colleagues with the Signory. See Capponi’s Storia, 
vol. i, p. 647. ‘The Signory was formed by the eight Priors of the Arts 
and the Gonfalonier of Justice. 

8 See above, p. 118, note 2, for a description of the Papal lodgings, 


LEO AT FLORENCE AND BOLOGNA. 18 


the 11th. Their conference lasted till the 15th, 
when Francis returned to Milan. On the 18th Leo 
began his journey back to Florence, which he re- 
entered on the 22nd. On Christmas day (Buonarroto 
writes Pasqua) a grand Mass was celebrated at S. 
Maria Novella, at which the Signory attended. The 
Pope celebrated in person, and, according to custom 
on high state occasions, the water with which he 
washed his hands before and during the ceremony 
had to be presented by personages of importance. 
“This duty,” says Buonarroto, “fell first to one of 
the Signori, who was Giannozzo Salviati; and as I 
happened that morning to be Proposto,! I went 
the second time to offer water to his Holiness; the 
third time, this was done by the Duke of Camerino, 
and the fourth time by the Gonfalonier of Justice.” 
Buonarroto remarks that “he feels pretty certain it 
will be all the same to Michelangelo whether he 
hears or does not hear about these matters. Yet, 
from time to time, when I have leisure, I scribble a 
few lines.” 

Buonarroto himself was interested inthis event; for, 
having been one of the Priors, he received from Leo 
the title of Count Palatine, with reversion to all his 
posterity. Moreover, for honourable addition to his 
arms, he was allowed to bear a chief charged with 
the Medicean ball and fleur-de-lys, between the capital 
letters L. and X. 


1 One of the Priors was chosen for three days to be the chairman of 
the Signory. He walked before the rest, and so forth, 


314 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Whether Leo conceived the plan of finishing 
the fagade of S. Lorenzo at Florence before he left 
Rome, or whether it occurred to him during this 
visit, isnot certain. The church had been erected by 
the Medici and other magnates from Brunelleschi’s 
designs, and was perfect except for the fagade. In its 
sacristy lay the mortal remains of Cosimo, Lorenzo the 
Magnificent, and many other members of the Medi- 
cean family. Here Leo came on the first Sunday 
in Advent to offer up prayers, and the Pope is said 
to have wept upon his father’s tomb. It may pos- 
sibly have been on this occasion that he adopted 
the scheme so fatal to the happiness of the great 
sculptor. Condivi clearly did not know what led 
to Michelangelo’s employment on the fagade of S. 
Lorenzo, and Vasari’s account of the transaction 1s 
involved. Both, however, assert that he was wounded, 
even to tears, at having to abandon the monument 
of Julius, and that he prayed in vain to be relieved 
of the new and uncongenial task. 


IV. 


Leo at first intended to divide the work between 
several masters, giving Buonarroti the general direc- 
tion of the whole. He ordered Giuliano da San 
Gallo, Raffaello da Urbino, Baccio d’Agnolo, Andrea 
and Jacopo Sansovino to prepare plans. While 


PLANS FOR S. LORENZO. 315 


these were in progress, Michelangelo also thought 
that he would try his hand at a design. As ill- 
luck ruled, Leo preferred his sketch to all the rest. 
Vasari adds that his unwillingness to be associated 
with any other artist in the undertaking, and his 
refusal to follow the plans of an architect, prevented 
the work from being executed, and caused the men 
selected by Leo to return in desperation to their 
ordinary pursuits." There may be truth in the re- 
port ; for it is certain that, after Michelangelo had 
been forced to leave the tomb of Julius and to take 
part in the fagade, he must have claimed to be sole 
master of the business. The one thing we know 
about his mode of operation is, that he brooked no 
rival near him, mistrusted collaborators, and found 
it difficult to co-operate even with the drudges whom 
he hired at monthly wages. 

Light is thrown upon these dissensions between 
Michelangelo and his proposed assistants by a 
letter which Jacopo Sansovino wrote to him at 
Carrara on the 30th of June 1517.2 He betrays his 
animus at the commencement by praising Baccio 
Bandinelli, to mention whom in the same breath 
with Buonarroti was an insult. Then he proceeds: 
“The Pope, the Cardinal, and Jacopo Salviati are 


1 Vasari, vol. xii. p. 201. A letter written by B. Bandinelli, Dee, 
7, 1547, corroborates Vasari. He accuses Michelangelo of having wil- 
fully prevented the execution of the facade out of jealousy toward 
younger masters, and a grudge against the Medici. See Lett. Pitt., i. 70. 

* Arch. Buon., Cod. xi. No.691. Part of it is printed by Gotti, vol. i, 
p. 136. 


316 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


men who when they say yes, it is a written con- 
tract, inasmuch as they are true to their word, and 
not what you pretend them to be. You measure 
them with your own rod; for neither contracts nor 
plighted troth avail with you, who are always say- 
ing nay and yea, according as you think it profitable. 
I must inform you, too, that the Pope promised me 
the sculptures, and so did Salviati; and they are 
men who will maintain me in my right to them. 
In what concerns you, I have done all I could to 
promote your interests and honour, not having 
earlier perceived that you never conferred a benefit 
on any one, and that, beginning with myself, to 
expect kindness from you, would be the same as 
wanting water not to wet. I have reason for what I 
say, since we have often met together in familiar con- 
verse, and may the day be cursed on which you ever 
said any good about anybody on earth.” How Michel- 
angelo answered this intemperate and unjust invective 
isnot known tous. Insome way or other the quarrel 
between the two sculptors must have been made up 
—probably through a frank apology on Sansovino’s 
part. When Michelangelo, in 1524, supplied the 
Duke of Sessa with a sketch for the sepulchral 
monument to be erected for himself and his wife, 
he suggested that Sansovino should execute the work, 
proving thus by acts how undeserved the latter's hasty 
words had been.’ | 

The Church of 8. Lorenzo exists now just as it 

1 Gotti, i. p. 177. 


_ THE FACADE OF S. LORENZO. 357 


was before the scheme for its facade occurred to 
Leo. Not the smallest part of that scheme was 
carried into effect, and large masses of the marbles 
quarried for the edifice lay wasted on the Tyrrhene 
sea-shore. We do not even know what design 
Michelangelo adopted. A model may be seen in the 
Accademia at Florence ascribed to Baccio d’Agnolo, 
and there is a drawing of a facade in the Uffizi at- 
tributed to Michelangelo, both of which have been 
supposed to have some connection with 8. Lorenzo. 
It is hardly possible, however, that Buonarroti’s com- 
petitors could have been beaten from the field by 
things so spiritless and ugly. A pen-and-ink drawing 
at the Museo Buonarroti possesses greater merit, and 
may perhaps have been a first rough sketch for the 
facade. It is not drawn to scale or worked out in 
the manner of practical architects; but the sketch 
exhibits features which we know to have existed in 
Buonarroti’s plan—masses of sculpture, with exten- 
sive bas-reliefs in bronze. In form the fagade would 
not have corresponded to Brunelleschis building. 
That, however, signified nothing to Italian archi- 
tects, who were satisfied when the frontispiece to a 
church or palace agreeably masked what lay behind it. 
Asa frame for sculpture, the design might have served 
its purpose, though there are large spaces difficult 
to account for; and spiteful folk were surely Jus- 
tified in remarking to the Pope that no one life 
sufficed for the performance of the whole. 
Nothing testifies more plainly to the ascendancy 


318 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


which this strange man acquired over the imagination 
of his contemporaries, while yet comparatively young, 
than the fact that Michelangelo had to relinquish work 
for which he was pre-eminently fitted (the tomb of 
Julius) for work to which his previous studies and 
his special inclinations in nowise called him. He 
undertook the fagade of 8. Lorenzo reluctantly, with 
tears in his eyes and dolour in his bosom, at the 
Pope Medusa’s bidding. He was compelled to re- 
commence art at a point which hitherto possessed 
for him no practical importance. ‘The drawings of 
the tomb, the sketch of the facade, prove that in 
architecture he was still a novice. Hitherto, he 
regarded building as the background to sculpture, 
or the surface on which frescoes might be limned. 
To achieve anything great in this new sphere implied 
for him a severe course of preliminary studies. It 
depends upon our final estimate of Michelangelo as 
an architect whether we regard the three years spent 
in Leo’s service for S. Lorenzo as wasted. Being 
what he was, it is certain that, when the commis- 
sion had been given, and he determined to attack 
his task alone, the man set himself down to grasp 
the principles of construction. There was leisure 
enough for such studies in the years during which 
we find him moodily employed among Tuscan quar- 
ries. The question is whether this strain upon his 
richly gifted genius did not come too late. When 
called to paint the Sistine, he complained that paint- 
ing was no art of his. He painted, and produced a 


ARCHITECTURAL STUDIES. 319 


masterpiece ; but sculpture still remained the major 
influence in all he wrought there. Now he was 
bidden to quit both sculpture and painting for 
another field, and, as Vasari hints, he would not 
work under the guidance of men trained to architec- 
ture. ‘The result was that Michelangelo applied 
himself to building with the full-formed spirit of 
a figurative artist. The obvious defects and the 
salient qualities of all he afterwards performed as 
architect seem due to the forced diversion of his 
talent at this period to a type of art he had not 
properly assimilated. Architecture was not the 
natural mistress of his spirit. He bent his talents 
to her service at a Pontiff’s word, and, with the 
honest devotion to work which characterised the 
man, he produced renowned monuments stamped by 
his peculiar style. Nevertheless, in building, he re- 
mains a sublime amateur, aiming at scenical effect, 
subordinating construction to decoration, seeking 
ever back toward opportunities for sculpture or for 
fresco, and occasionally (as in the cupola of S. 
Peter’s) hitting upon a thought beyond the reach 
of inferior minds. 

The paradox implied in this diversion of our hero 
from the path it ought to have pursued may be ex- 
plained in three ways. First, he had already come 
to be regarded as a man of unique ability, from 
whom everything could be demanded. Next, it 
was usual for the masters of the Renaissance, from 
Leo Battista Alberti down to Raffaello da Urbino 


320 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


and Lionardo da Vinci, to undertake all kinds of 
technical work intrusted to their care by patrons. 
Finally, Michelangelo, though he knew that sculpture 
was his goddess, and never neglected her first claim 
upon his genius, felt in him that burning ambition 
for greatness, that desire to wrestle with all forms of 
beauty and all depths of science, which tempted him 
to transcend the limits of a single art and try his 
powers in neighbour regions. He was a man born 
to aim at all, to dare all, to embrace all, to leave 
his personality deep-trenched on all the provinces 
of art he chose to traverse. 


Ve 


The whole of 1516 and 1517 elapsed before Leo’s 
plans regarding S. Lorenzo took a definite shape. 
Yet we cannot help imagining that when Michel- 
angelo cancelled his first contract with the executors 
of Julius, and adopted a reduced plan for the monu- 
ment, he was acting under Papal pressure. ‘This was 
done at Rome in July, and much against the will of 
both parties. Still it does not appear that any one 
contemplated the abandonment of the scheme ; for 
Buonarroti bound himself to perform his new con- 
tract within the space of nine years, and to engage 
“in no work of great importance which should in- 
terfere with its fulfilment.” He spent a large part 


‘saruuvaty aAIUV I, VUVUUVY) 








RESIDENCE AT CARRARA. 321 


of the year 1516 at Carrara, quarrying marbles, and 
even hired the house of a certain Francesco Pelliccia 
in that town. On the 1st of November he signed 
an agreement with the same Pelliccia involving the 
purchase of a vast amount of marble, whereby the 
said Pelliccia undertook to bring down four statues 
of 44 cubits each and fifteen of 4} cubits from 
the quarries where they were being rough-hewn.’ 
It was the custom to block out columns, statues, &c., 
on the spot where the stone had been excavated, in 
order probably to save weight when hauling. Thus 
the blocks arrived at the sea-shore with rudely adum- 
brated outlines of the shape they were destined to 
assume under the artist’s chisel. It has generally 
been assumed that the nineteen figures in question 
were intended for the tomb. What makes this not 
quite certain, however, is that the contract of July 
specifies a greatly reduced quantity and scale of 
statues. Therefore they may have been intended for 
the fagade. Anyhow, the contract above-mentioned 
with Francesco Pelliccia was cancelled on the 7th 
of April following, for reasons which will presently 
appear.” 

During the month of November 1516 Michel- 
angelo received notice from the Pope that he was 
wanted in Rome. About the same time news reached 
him from Florence of his father’s severe illness. 
On the 23rd he wrote as follows to Buonarroto:? 
“I gathered from your last that Lodovico was on 


1 Vasari, vol. xil. p. 352. * Vasari, xii. 353. 3 Lettere, No, cxii. 
VOL. I. x 


322 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


the point of dying, and how the doctor finally pro- 
nounced that if nothing new occurred he might be 
considered out of danger. Since it is so, I shall not 
prepare to come to Florence, for it would be very 
inconvenient. Still, if there is danger, I should 
desire to see him, come what might, before he died, 
if even I had to die together with him. I have 
good hope, however, that he will get well, and so 
I do not come. And if he should have a relapse 
—from which may God preserve him and us—see 
that he lacks nothing for his spiritual welfare and 
the sacraments of the Church, and find out from 
him if he wishes us to do anything for his soul. 
Also, for the necessaries of the body, take care that 
he lacks nothing; for I have laboured only and 
solely for him, to help him in his needs before he 
dies. So bid your wife look with loving-kindness 
to his household affairs. I will make everything 
good to her and all of you, if it be necessary. Do 
not have the least hesitation, even if you have to 
expend all that we possess.” 

We may assume that the subsequent reports 
regarding Lodovico’s health were satisfactory ; for 
on the 5th of December Michelangelo set out for 
Rome. The executors of Julius had assigned him 
free quarters in a house situated in the Trevi dis- 
trict, opposite the public road which leads to S. 
Maria del Loreto. Here, then, he probably took up 


1 It must have been close to the Forum of Trajan, and not far from 
his old dwelling at the Macello de’ Corvi, which lies below the Capitoline 


TOMB OF JULIUS AGAIN. 323 


his abode. We have seen that he had bound him- 
self to finish the monument of Julius within the 
space of nine years, and to engage “in no work of 
great moment which should interfere with its per- 
formance.” How this clause came to be inserted 
in a deed inspired by Leo is one of the difficulties 
with which the whole tragedy of the sepulchre 
bristles. Perhaps we ought to conjecture that the 
Pope’s intentions with regard to the facade of S. 
Lorenzo only became settled in the late autumn. 
At any rate, he had now to transact with the exe- 
cutors of Julius, who were obliged to forego the 
rights over Michelangelo’s undivided energies which 
they had acquired by the clause I have just cited. 
They did so with extreme reluctance, and to the 
bitter disappointment of the sculptor, who saw the 
great scheme of his manhood melting into air, 
dwindling in proportions, becoming with each change 
less capable of satisfactory performance. 

Having at last definitely entered the service of 
Pope Leo, Michelangelo travelled to Florence, and 
intrusted Baccio d’Agnolo with the construction of 
the model of his fagade. It may have been upon 
the occasion of this visit that one of his father’s 
whimsical fits of temper called out a passionate and 
sorry letter from his son. It appears that Pietro 


Hill, just opposite the Column of Trajan. Letters are addressed to him 
“close by the Church of Loreto.” Condivi’s only extant letter is super- 
scribed: “A Roma vicino la piazza di S. Apostolo canto la chiesa di 
Loreto e casa Zanbeccari.” Arch. Buon., Cod. vii. 49. 


324 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Urbano, Michelangelo’s trusty henchman at this 
period, said something which angered Lodovico, and 
made him set off in a rage to Settignano : ’— 


‘‘DgeAREST FATHER,—I marvelled much at what 
had happened to you the other day, when I did not 
find you at home. And now, hearing that you com- 
plain of me, and say that I have turned you out of 
doors, I marvel much the more, inasmuch as I know 
for certain that never once from the day that I was 
born till now had I a single thought of doing anything 
or small or great which went against you; and all 
this time the labours I have undergone have been 
for the love of you alone. Since I returned from 
Rome to Florence, you know that I have always 
cared for you, and you know that all that belongs 
to me I have bestowed on you. Some days ago, 
then, when you were ill, I promised solemnly never 
to fail you in anything within the scope of my whole 
faculties so long as my life lasts; and this I again 
affirm. Now I am amazed that you should have for- 
gotten everything so soon. And yet you have learned 
to know me by experience these thirty years, you 
and your sons, and are well aware that I have 
always thought and acted, so far as I was able, for 
your good. How can you go about saying I have 
turned you out of doors? Do you not see what 
a reputation you have given me by saying I have 
turned you out? Only this was wanting to complete 


1 Lettere, No. xxxix. 


AT WORK ON THE FACADE. 325 


my tale of troubles, all of which I suffer for your 
love. You repay me well, forsooth. But let it be 
as it must: I am willing to acknowledge that I have 
always brought shame and loss on you, and on this 
supposition I beg your pardon. MReckon that you 
are pardoning a son who has lived a bad life and 
done you all the harm which it is possible to do. 
And so I once again implore you to pardon me, 
scoundrel that I am, and not bring on me the re- 
proach of having turned you out of doors; for that 
matters more than you imagine to me. After all, I 
am your son.” 


From Florence Michelangelo proceeded again to 
Carrara for the quarrying of marble. ‘This was on the 
last day of December. From his domestic correspond- 
ence we find that he stayed there until at least the 
13th of March, 1517; but he seems to have gone to 
Florence just about that date, in order to arrange 
matters with Baccio d’Agnolo aboutthe model. A frag- 
mentary letter to Buonarroto, dated March 13, shows 
that he had begun a model of his own at Carrara, and 
that he no longer needed Baccio’s assistance." On his 
arrival at Florence he wrote to Messer Buoninsegni, 
who acted as intermediary at Rome between himselt 
and the Pope in all things that concerned the fagade :? 


1 Lettere, No. cxiii. 

2 It seems to have been the custom to employ these go-betweens. 
Michelangelo sometimes found them very troublesome, and expressed 
his feelings frankly in a letter to Pope Clement VII. See Lettere, 
No. ccclxxxi. 


326 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


‘* Messer Domenico, I have come to Florence to see 
the model which Baccio has finished, and find it a 
mere child’s plaything. If you think it best to have 
it sent, write to me. I leave again to-morrow for 
Carrara, where I have begun to make a model in 
clay with Grassa [a stone-hewer from Settignano |.” 
Then he adds that, in the long run, he believes that 
he shall have to make the model himself, which 
distresses him on account of the Pope and the Car- 
dinal Giulio. Lastly, he informs his correspondent 
that he has contracted with two separate companies 
for two hundred cartloads of Carrara marble.’ 

An important letter to the same Domenico Buon- 
insegni, dated Carrara, May 2, 1517, proves that 
Michelangelo had become enthusiastic about his 
new design.” ‘I have many things to say to you. 
So I beg you to take some patience when you read 
my words, because it is a matter of moment. Well, 
then, I feel it in me to make this facade of S. 
Lorenzo such that it shall be a mirror of archi- 


1 Lettere, No. cccxlvi. The numerous transactions of Michelangelo 
with stone-masons, owners of quarries, and so forth, at Carrara, between 
January 3 and August 20, 1517, will be found in Lettere, pp. 655-670. 
In February he entered into partnership with a certain Lionardo di 
Cagione. They were to work together, sharing costs and profits. In 
March this partnership was dissolved “ per buon rispetto.” 

* Lettere, No. cccxlviii. One of the inedited letters in the Arch. 
Buon. from Bernardo Niccolini to Michelangelo in Carrara (Cod. x, 
No. 578, date May 18, 1517) throws a glimpse of light upon his daily 
life. It is indorsed with a menu for some meal; “ Pani dua, un bochal 
di vino, una aringa, tortegli,” &. Each item is accompanied by a little 
pen-drawing : two loaves of bread, a glass decanter, a herring, three 
round tarts or buns, and so forth, in the master’s autograph, 


LEO X. AND GIULIO DE’ MEDICI. 327 


tecture and of sculpture to all Italy. But the Pope 
and the Cardinal must decide at once whether they 
want to have it done or not. If they desire it, then 
they must come to some definite arrangement, either 
intrusting the whole to me on contract, and leaving 
me a free hand, or adopting some other plan which 
may occur to them, and about which I can form 
no idea.” He proceeds at some length to inform 
Buoninsegni of various transactions regarding the 
purchase of marble, and the difficulties he encounters 
in procuring perfect blocks. His estimate for the 
costs of the whole facade is 35,000 golden ducats, 
and he offers to carry the work through for that sum 
in six years. Meanwhile he peremptorily demands an 
immediate settlement of the business, stating that he 
is anxious to leave Carrara. The vigorous tone of this 
document is unmistakable. It seemsto have impressed 
his correspondents; for Buoninsegni replies upon 
the 8th of May that the Cardinal expressed the 
highest satisfaction at ‘‘the great heart he had for 
conducting the work of the fagade.”* At the same 
time the Pope was anxious to inspect the model. 
Leo, I fancy, was always more than half-hearted 
about the facade. He did not personally sympathise 
with Michelangelo’s character; and, seeing what his 
tastes were, it is impossible that he can have really 
appreciated the quality of his genius. Giulio de’ 
Medici, afterwards Pope Clement VII., was more in 
sympathy with Buonarroti both as artist and as man. 


1 Gotti, i. 112. 


328 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


To him we may with probability ascribe the impulse 
given at this moment to the project. After several 
visits to Florence during the summer, and much cor- 
respondence with the Medici through their Roman 
agent, Michelangelo went finally, upon the 31st of 
August, to have the model completed under his own 
eyes by a workman in his native city. It was care- 
fully constructed of wood, showing the statuary in 
wax-relief. Nearly four months were expended on 
this miniature. The labour was lost, for not a ves- 
tige of it now remains. Near the end of December 
he despatched his servant, Pietro Urbano, with the 
finished work to Rome. On the 29th of that month, 
Urbano writes that he exposed the model in Messer 
Buoninsegni’s apartment, and that the Pope and 
Cardinal were very well pleased with it. Buoninsegni 
wrote to the same effect, adding, however, that folk 
said it could never be finished in the sculptor’s life- 
time, and suggesting that Michelangelo should hire 
assistants from Milan, where he, Buoninsegni, had 
seen excellent stonework in progress at the Duomo. 
Some time in January 1518, Michelangelo travelled 
to Rome, conferred with Leo, and took the facade of 
S. Lorenzo on contract.”_ In February he returned 
by way of Florence to Carrara, where the quarry- 
masters were in open rebellion against him, and 


GOGH, ao te: 

* The most authentic source of information about events between 
December 5, 1516, and February 25, 1518, is Michelangelo’s own Ricordt, 
Lettere, p. 568. The contract is dated January 19, 1518. Lettere 
Contr. xxxili. p. 671. 


QUARRIES AT PIETRA SANTA. 329 


refused to carry out their contracts. This forced 
him to go to Genoa, and hire ships there for the 
transport of his blocks. Then the Carraresi cor- 
rupted the captains of these boats, and drove Michel- 
angelo to Pisa (April 7), where he finally made an 
arrangement with a certain Francesco Peri to ship 
the marbles lying on the sea-shore at Carrara." 
The reason of this revolt against him at Carrara 
may be briefly stated. The Medici determined to 
begin working the old marble quarries of Pietra 
Santa, on the borders of the Florentine domain, and 
this naturally aroused the commercial jealousy of 
the folk at Carrara.? ‘‘ Information,” says Condivi, 
“was sent to Pope Leo that marbles could be found 
in the high-lands above Pietra Santa, fully equal 
in quality and beauty to those of Carrara. Michel- 
angelo, having been sounded on the subject, chose 
to go on quarrying at Carrara rather than to take 
those belonging to the State of Florence. ‘This he 
did because he was befriended with the Marchese 
Alberigo, and lived on a good understanding with 
him. The Pope wrote to Michelangelo, ordering 
him to repair to Pietra Santa, and see whether the 
information he had received from Florence was cor- 
rect. He did so, and ascertained that the marbles 
were very hard to work, and ill-adapted to their pur- 


1 Lettere, Nos. cccxlix., cxiv., cxv. 

2 By a deed executed May 18,1515, the commune of Seravezza ceded 
to Florence all its property in quarries between the mountains of 
Altissimo and Ceresola, Lettere, Contr. xv. p. 643. 


330 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


pose ; even had they been of the proper kind, it would 
be difficult and costly to convey them to the sea. 
A road of many miles would have to be made 
through the mountains with pick and crowbar, and 
along the plain on piles, since the ground there was 
marshy.” Michelangelo wrote all this to the Pope, 
who preferred, however, to believe the persons who 
had written to him from Florence. So he ordered 
him to construct the road.” The road, it may paren- 
thetically be observed, was paid for by the wealthy 
Wool Corporation of Florence, who wished to revive 
this branch of Florentine industry. ‘‘ Michelangelo, 
carrying out the Pope’s commands, had the road laid 
down, and transported large quantities of marbles to 
the sea-shore. Among these were five columns of 
the proper dimensions, one of which may be seen 
upon the Piazza di S. Lorenzo. The other four, 
forasmuch as the Pope changed his mind and turned 
his thoughts elsewhere, are still lying on the sea- 
beach. Now the Marquis of Carrara, deeming that 
Michelangelo had developed the quarries at Pietra 
Santa out of Florentine patriotism, became his enemy, 
and would not suffer him to return to Carrara for cer- 
tain blocks which had been excavated there: all which 
proved the source of great loss to Michelangelo.” ? 


1 The Arch, Buon. contains an inedited letter from Fra Massimiliano, 
Abbot of Camaiore, about the construction of roads on the sea-coast 
between that place and the sea (date April 17, 1518, Cod. viii. No. 373). 
It has some biographical interest, since the exordium hails Michel- 
angelo as the equal of Apelles, Praxiteles, and Lysippus. 

2 Condivi, p. 44. 


RESIDENCE AT SERRAVEZZA. 23% 


When the contract with Francesco Pelliccia was 
eancelled, April 7, 1517, the project for developing 
the Florentine stone-quarries does not seem to have 
taken shape.’ We must assume, therefore, that the 
motive for this step was the abandonment of the 
tomb. The Ricordi show that Michelangelo was 
still buying marbles and visiting Carrara down to 
the end of February 1518.” His correspondence from 
Pietra Santa and Serravezza, where he lived when 
he was opening the Florentine quarries of Monte 
Altissimo, does not begin, with any certainty, until 
March 1518. We have indeed one letter written 
to Girolamo del Bardella of Porto Venere upon the 
6th of August, without date of year. ‘This was sent 
from Serravezza, and Milanesi, when he first made 
use of it, assigned it to 1517.? Gotti, following that 
indication, asserts that Michelangelo began his opera- 
tions at Monte Altissimo in July 1517; but Milanesi 
afterwards changed his opimon, and assigned it to 
the year 1519.4 I believe he was right, because the 
first letter, bearing a certain date from Pietra Santa, 
was written in March 1518 to Pietro Urbano. It 
contains the account of Michelangelo’s difficulties 
with the Carraresi, and his journey to Genoa and 
Pisa. We have, therefore, every reason to believe 


1 We must bear in mind, however, that the Arte della Lana had 
acquired property in them so far back as the year 1515. See above, 
p- 329, note 2. 2 Lettere, p. 568. 

3 Vasari, vol, xii. p. 354. 4 Lettere, No. ccclxvii. 

5 Lettere, No. cccxlix. Notice that Michelangelo’s Ricordo (Lettere, p. 
589) gives no account of a visit to Pietra Santa, and winds up at Carrara 


a3 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


that he finally abandoned Carrara for Pietra Santa 
at the end of February 1518. 

Pietra Santa is a little city on the Tuscan seaboard; 
Serravezza is a still smaller fortress-town at the foot 
of the Carrara mountains. Monte Altissimo rises 
above it; and on the flanks of that great hill lie 
the quarries Della Finocchiaja, which Michelangelo 
opened at the command of Pope Leo. It was not 
without reluctance that Michelangelo departed from 
Carrara, offending the Marquis Malaspina, breaking 
his contracts, and disappointing the folk with whom 
he had lived on friendly terms ever since his first 
visit in 1505. A letter from the Cardinal Giulio 
de’ Medici shows that great pressure was put 
upon him.’ It runs thus: ‘‘ We have received yours, 
and shown it to our Lord the Pope. Considering 
that all your doings are in favour of Carrara, you 
have caused his Holiness and us no small aston- 
ishment. What we heard from Jacopo Salviati 
contradicts your opinion. He went to examine the 
marble-quarries at Pietra Santa, and informed us 
that there are enormous quantities of stone, excellent 


on the date February 25, 1518. There is a letter from Donato Benti to 
Michelangelo in Florence, dated from Pietra Santa, February 9, 1518 
(Arch, Buon., Cod. vi., No. §3). Another from Domenico Boninsegni to 
Michelangelo m Pietra Santa, dated March 1518 (bid., Cod. vi., No. 
103). In the Archive I found no letter addressed to Michelangelo at 
Pietra Santa earlier than this. I may here observe that careful ex- 
amination of the business letters written to Michelangelo by Salviati, 
Baccio d’Agnolo, Benti, Buoninsegni, Fattucci, Topolino, Niccolini, 
Urbano, and others, may still throw fresh light on his movements, 
1 Gotti, vol. i. p. 109. 


DIFFICULTIES WITH CARRARA. 333 


in quality, and easy to bring down. This being the 
case, some suspicion has arisen in our minds that 
you, for your own interests, are too partial to the 
quarries of Carrara, and want to depreciate those of 
Pietra Santa. This, of a truth, would be wrong in 
you, considering the trust we have always reposed 
in your honesty. Wherefore we inform you that, 
regardless of any other consideration, his Holiness 
wills that all the work to be done at 8. Peter's or 
S. Reparata, or on the fagade of 8. Lorenzo, shall be 
carried out with marbles supplied from Pietra Santa, 
and no others, for the reasons above written. More- 
over, we hear that they will cost less than those of 
Carrara; but, even should they cost more, his Holiness 
is firmly resolved to act as I have said, furthering 
the business of Pietra Santa for the public benefit 
of the city. Look to it, then, that you carry out in 
detail all that we have ordered without fail; for if 
you do otherwise, it will be against the expressed 
wishes of his Holiness and ourselves, and we shall 
have good reason to be seriously wroth with you. 
Our agent Domenico (Buoninsegni) is bidden to write 
to the same effect. Reply to him how much money 
you want, and quickly, banishing from your mind 
every kind of obstinacy.” 

Michelangelo began to work with his usual energy 
at roadmaking and quarrying. What he learned of 
practical business as engineer, architect, master of 
works, and paymaster during these years among 
the Carrara mountains must have been of vast 


334 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


importance for his future work. He was preparing 
himself to organise the fortifications of Florence 
and the Leonine City, and to crown S. Peteyr’s 
with the cupola. Quarrying, as I have said, im- 
plied cutting out and rough-hewing blocks exactly 
of the right dimensions for certain portions of a 
building or a piece of statuary. The master was 
therefore obliged to have his whole plan perfect in 
his head before he could venture to order marble. 
Models, drawings made to scale, careful measure- 
ments, were necessary at each successive step. Day 
and night Buonarroti was at work; in the saddle 
early in the morning, among stone-cutters and road- 
makers ; in the evening, studying, projecting, calcu- 
lating, settling up accounts by lamplight. 


VI. 


The narrative of Michelangelo’s personal life and 
movements must here be interrupted in order to 
notice an event in which he took no common in- 
terest. The members of the Florentine Academy 
addressed a memorial to Leo X., requesting him to 
authorise the translation of Dante Alighieri’s bones 
from Ravenna to his native city. The document 
was drawn up in Latin, and dated October 20, 1518." 


1 See Condivi, p. 139, or Gotti, ii. p. 82. The original is shown in 
the rooms of the State Archives at the Uffizi. 


SONNETS ON DANTE. 335 


Among the names and signatures appended, Michel- 
angelo’s alone is written in Italian: “I, Michel- 
angelo, the sculptor, pray the like of your Holiness, 
offering my services to the divine poet for the erec- 
tion of a befitting sepulchre to him in some honour- 
able place in this city.” Nothing resulted from this 
petition, and the supreme poet’s remains still rest 
beneath “the little cupola, more neat than solemn,” 
guarded by Pietro Lombardi’s half-length portrait. 
Of Michelangelo’s special devotion to Dante and 
the “ Divine Comedy” we have plenty of proof. In 
the first place, there exist the two fine sonnets 
to his memory, which were celebrated in their 
author's lifetime, and still remain among the best of 
his performances in verse.’ Itdoes not appear when 
they were composed. ‘The first is probably earlier 
than the second; for below the autograph of the 
latter is written, “‘ Messer Donato, you ask of me 
what I do not possess.” The Donato is undoubtedly 
Donato Giannotti, with whom Michelangelo lived on 
very familiar terms at Rome about 1545. Iwill here 
insert my English translation of these sonnets :— 
From heaven his spirit came, and, robed in clay, 
The realms of justice and of mercy trod: 
Then rose a living man to gaze on God, 
That he might make the truth as clear as day, 
For that pure star, that brightened with his ray 
The undeserving nest where I was born, 


The whole wide world would be a prize to scorn ; 
None but his Maker can due guerdon pay. 





1 Rime ; Sonnets, Nas, i, and ii. 


336 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


I speak of Dante, whose high work remains 
Unknown, unhonoured by that thankless brood, 
Who only to just men deny their wage. 

Were I but he! Born for like lingering pains, 
Against his exile coupled with his good 
Id gladly change the world’s best heritage ! 


No tongue can tell of him what should be told, 
For on blind eyes his splendour shines too strong ; 
T were easier to blame those who wrought him wrong, 
Than sound his least praise with a mouth of gold. 
He to explore the place of pain was bold, 
Then soared to God, to teach our souls by song ; 
The gates heaven oped to bear his feet along, 
Against his just desire his country rolled. 
Thankless I call her, and to her own pain 
The nurse of fell mischance ; for sign take this, 
That ever to the best she deals more scorn ; 
Among a thousand proofs let one remain ; 
Though ne’er was fortune more unjust than his, 
His equal or his better ne’er was born. 


The influence of Dante over Buonarroti’s style of 
composition impressed his contemporaries. Bene- 
detto Varchi, in the proemium to a lecture upon 
one of Michelangelo’s poems, speaks of it as “a 
most sublime sonnet, full of that antique purity and 
Dantesque gravity.” * Dante’s influence over the great 
artist’s pictorial imagination is strongly marked in 
the fresco of the Last Judgment, where Charon's 
boat, and Minos with his twisted tail, are borrowed 
direct from the Inferno. Condivi, moreover, informs 
us that the statues of the Lives Contemplative and 
Active upon the tomb of Julius were suggested by 


1 Rime, p. 1xxxvii. - 


MICHELANGELO AND DANTE. 337 


the Rachel and Leah of the Purgatorio. We also 
know that he filled a book with drawings illustrative 
of the ‘Divine Comedy.” By a miserable accident 
this most precious volume, while in the possession of 
Antonio Montauti, the sculptor, perished at sea on a 
journey from Livorno to Rome. 

But the strongest proof of Michelangelo’s repu- 
tation as a learned student of Dante is given in Don- 
ato Giannotti’s Dialogue upon the number of days 
spent by the poet during his journey through Hell 
and Purgatory.’ Luigi del Riccio, who was a great 
friend of the sculptor’s, is supposed to have been 
walking one day toward the Lateran with Antonio 
Petreo. Their conversation fell upon Cristoforo 
Landino’s theory that the time consumed by Dante 
in this transit was the whole of the night of Good 
Friday, together with the following day. While en- 
gaged in this discussion, they met Donato Giannotti 
taking the air with Michelangelo. The four friends 
joined company, and Petreo observed that it was a 
singular good fortune to have fallen that morning 
upon two such eminent Dante scholars. Donato 
replied: “ With regard to Messer Michelangelo, you 
have abundant reason to say that he is an eminent 
Dantista, since I am acquainted with no one who 
understands him better and has a fuller mastery over 
his works.” It is not needful to give a detailed 
account of Buonarroti’s Dantesque criticism, re- 


1 De giornt che Dante consumd, &c. Firenze: Tip. Galileiana, 
1589. Sufficient excerpts will be found in Guasti’s Hume, pp. xxvi - 
XXXIV. 

VOL. I; Y 


338 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


ported in these dialogues, although there are good 
grounds for supposing them in part to represent 
exactly what Giannotti heard him say. ‘This applies 
particularly to his able interpretation of the reason 
why Dante placed Brutus and Cassius in hell—not 
as being the murderers of a tyrant, but as having 
laid violent hands upon the sacred majesty of the 
Empire in the person of Cesar. The narrative of 
Dante’s journey through Hell and Purgatory, which 
is put into Michelangelo’s mouth, if we are to believe 
that he really made it extempore and without book, 
shows a most minute knowledge of the Inferno. 


VII. 


Michelangelo’s doings at Serravezza can be traced 
with some accuracy during the summers of 1518 and 
1519. An important letter to Buonarroto, dated 
April 2, 1518, proves that the execution of the road 
had not yet been decided on.’ He is impatient to 
hear whether the Wool Corporation has voted the 
necessary funds and appointed him to engineer 
it. ‘With regard to the construction of the road 
here, please tell Jacopo Salviati that I shall carry out — 
his wishes, and he will not be betrayed by me. Ido — 
not look after any interests of my own in this matter, 
but seek to serve my patrons and my country. If I 


1 Lettere, No. exiv. 


PIETRA SANTA CONTRACT. 339 


begged the Pope and Cardinal to give me full control 
over the business, it was that I might be able to 
conduct it to those places where the best marbles 
are. Nobody here knows anything about them. I 
did not ask for the commission in order to make 
money; nothing of the sort is in my head.” This 
proves conclusively that much which has been 
written about the waste of Michelangelo’s abilities 
on things a lesser man might have accomplished is 
merely sentimental. On the contrary, he was even 
accused of begging for the contract from a desire 
to profit by it. In another letter, of April 18, the 
decision of the Wool Corporation was still anxiously 
expected. Michelangelo gets impatient. ‘TI shall 
mount my horse, and go to find the Pope and 
Cardinal, tell them how it is with me, leave the 
business here, and return to Carrara. The folk there 
pray for my return as one is wont to pray to Christ.” 
Then he complains of the worthlessness and dis- 
loyalty of the stone-hewers he brought from Florence, 
and winds up with an angry postscript: ‘“ Oh, cursed 
a thousand times the day and hour when I left 
Carrara! This is the cause of my utter ruin. But 
I shall go back there soon, Nowadays it is a sin to 
do one’s duty.” On the 22nd of April the Wool Cor- 
poration assigned to Michelangelo a contract for the 
quarries, leaving him free to act as he thought best.” 


1 Lettere, No. cxvi. 

* Lettere, p. 137, note. The text of this charter is given, ibid., Contr, 
XXXvil. p. 679. It appointed Michelangelo to life-management and a 
monopoly. 


340 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Complaints follow about his workmen.” One passage 
is curious: “Sandro, he too has gone away from 
here. He stopped several months with a mule and 
a little mule in grand style, doing nothing but fish 
and make love. He cost me a hundred ducats 
to no purpose; has left a certain quantity of 
marble, giving me the right to take the blocks 
that suit my purpose. However, I cannot find 
among them what is worth twenty-five ducats, the 
whole being a jumble of rascally work. Kither 
maliciously or through ignorance, he has treated 
me very ill.” 

Upon the 17th April 1517, Michelangelo had 
bought a piece of ground in Via Mozza, now Via 8. 
Zanobi, at Florence, from the Chapter of S. Maria 
del Fiore, in order to build a workshop there. He 
wished, about the time of the last letter quoted, te 
get an additional lot of land, in order to have larger 
space at his command for the finishing of marbles. 
The negotiations went on through the summer of 
1518, and on the 24th of November he records that 
the purchase was completed. Premises adapted to 
the sculptor’s purpose were erected, which remained 

1 Lettere, Nos. cxviii.,cxix. Sandro was a stone-hewer of Settignano, 
the brother of Michelangelo’s friend Topolino. By a deed, dated March 
15, 1518, it seems that he brought eight stone-cutters from Settignano 
and its neighbourhood, ibid., Contr. xxxiv. p. 673. Compare Nos. xxxix., 
xl, xlii, On April 27, 1518, he executed a power of attorney, constituting 
Donato di Battista Benti, a Florentine, his agent-in-chief at Pietra Santa, 
ibid., No. xxxviii. p. 681. The Arch. Buon., Cod. vi. Nos. 53-81, con- 


tains twenty-nine business letters from this Benti, between February 
1g, 1518, and July 7, 1521. 


QUARRYING AND ROAD-MAKING. 341 


in Michelangelo’s possession until the close of his 
life.’ 

In August 1518 he writes to a friend at Florence 
that the road is now as good as finished, and that 
he is bringing down his columns.’ The work is more 
difficult than he expected. One man’s life had been 
already thrown away, and Michelangelo himself was 
in great danger. “The place where we have to quarry 
is exceedingly rough, and the workmen are very 
stupid at their business. [or some months I must 
make demands upon my powers of patience until 
the mountains are tamed and the men instructed. 
Afterwards we shall proceed more quickly. Enough, 
that I mean to do what I promised, and shall pro- 
duce the finest thing that Italy has ever seen, if 
God assists me.” 

There is no want of heart and spirit in these letters. 
Irritable at moments, Michelangelo was at bottom 
enthusiastic, and, like Napoleon Buonaparte, felt 
capable of conquering the world with his sole arm. 

In September we find him back again at Flor- 
ence, where he seems to have spent the winter. His 
friends wanted him to go to Rome; they thought 
that his presence there was needed to restore the con- 
fidence of the Medici and to overpower calumniating 
rivals. In reply to a letter of admonition written 
in this sense by his friend Lionardo di Compagno, 


1 Lettere, p. 141, note 1; p. 575. A letter from Daniele da Volterra, 
dated May 8, 1557, mentions a visit to “la bottega in Via Mozza.” 
Arch. Buon., Cod. x. No. 646, 

2 Lettere, No. ceclvi. 


342 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


the saddle-maker, he writes:' “‘ Your urgent solici- 
tations are to me so many stabs of the knife. J am 
dying of annoyance at not being able to do what I 
should like to do, through my ill-luck.” At the 
same time he adds that he has now arranged an 
excellent workshop, where twenty statues can be set 
up together. The drawback is that there are no 
means of covering the whole space in and protecting 
it against the weather. This yard, encumbered with 
the marbles for S. Lorenzo, must have been in the 
Via Mozza. 

Karly in the spring he removed to Serravezza, and 
resumed the work of bringing down his blocked-out 
columns from the quarries. One of these pillars, six 
of which he says were finished, was of huge size, 
intended probably for the flanks to the main door 
at S. Lorenzo. It tumbled into the river, and was 
smashed to pieces. Michelangelo attributed the 
accident solely to the bad quality of iron which a 
rascally fellow had put into the lewis-ring by means 
of which the block was being raised.” On this occasion 
he again ran considerable risk of injury, and suffered 
great annoyance. The following letter of condolence, 
written by Jacopo Salviati, proves how much he was 
grieved, and also shows that he lived on excellent 
terms with the Pope’s right-hand man and coun- 
sellor:° ‘Keep up your spirits and proceed gallantly 

1 Lettere, No. ccclix., date Dec. 21, 1518. 


2 Lettere, No. ccclxiv., to Pietro Urbano, April 20, 1519. 
3 Gotti, i. 126. 


DIFFICULTIES OF THE WORK. 343 


with your great enterprise, for your honour requires 
this, seeing you have commenced the work. Confide 
in me; nothing will be amiss with you, and our 
Lord is certain to compensate you for far greater 
losses than this. Have no doubt upon this point, 
and if you want one thing more than another, let 
me know, and you shall be served immediately. 
Remember that your undertaking a work of such 
magnitude will lay our city under the deepest 
obligation, not only to yourself, but also to your 
family for ever. Great men, and of courageous 
spirit, take heart under adversities, and become 
more energetic.” 

A pleasant thread runs through Michelangelo’s 
correspondence during these years. It is the affection 
he felt for his workman Pietro Urbano.” When he 
leaves the young man behind him at Florence, he 
writes frequently, giving him advice, bidding him 
mind his studies, and also telling him to confess. 
It happened that Urbano fell ill at Carrara toward 
the end of August. Michelangelo, on hearing the 
news, left Florence and travelled by post to Carrara. 
Thence he had his friend transported on the backs of 
men to Serravezza, and after his recovery sent him 
to pick up strength in his native city of Pistoja. In 
one of the Ricordi he reckons the cost of all this at 
334 ducats.” 


1 Pietro, in a letter written from Rome, calls him “charissimo quanto 
padre.” 

2 Lettere, p. 579. During his convalescence at Pistoja, Urbano wrote 
an affectionate letter to his master, which I shall use in Chapter XV. 


344 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


While Michelangelo was residing at Pietra Santa 
in 1518, his old friend and fellow-worker, Pietro 
Rosselli, wrote to him from Rome, asking his advice 
about a tabernacle of marble which Pietro Sode- 
rini had ordered. It was to contain the head of S. 
John the Baptist, and to be placed in the Church of 
the Convent of S. Silvestro.*. On the 7th of June 
Soderini wrote upon the same topic, requesting a 
design. This Michelangelo sent in October, the 
execution of the shrine being intrusted to Federigo 
Frizzi. The incident would hardly be worth mention- 
ing, except for the fact that it brings to mind one 
of Michelangelo’s earliest patrons, the good-hearted 
Gonfalonier of Justice, and anticipates the coming 
of the only woman he is known to have cared for, 
Vittoria Colonna. It was at S. Silvestro that she 
dwelt, retired in widowhood, and here occurred those 
Sunday morning conversations of which Francesco 
d’Olanda has left us so interesting a record. 

During the next year, 1519, a certain Tommaso 
di Dolfo invited him to visit Adrianople.* He 
reminded him how, coming together in Florence, 
when Michelangelo lay there in hiding from Pope 
Julius, they had talked about the East, and he had 
expressed a wish to travel into Turkey. ‘Tommaso di 
Dolfo dissuaded him on that occasion, because the 


1 It does not seem to have been completed. 

2 Arch. Buon., Cod. xi. No. 724. I have followed Gotti’s version 
of this man’s name. In the manuscript it seemed to me more like 
Tommaso di Tolpo. 


SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO. 345 


ruler of the province was a man of no taste and 
careless about the arts. Things had altered since, 
and he thought there was a good opening for an 
able sculptor. Things, however, had altered in Italy 
also, and Buonarroti felt no need to quit the country 
where his fame was growing daily. 

Considerable animation is introduced into the 
annals of Michelangelo’s life at this point by his 
correspondence with jovial Sebastiano del Piombo. 
We possess one of this painter’s letters, dating 
as early as 1510, when he thanks Buonarroti 
for consenting to be godfather to his boy Luciano; 
a second, of 1512, which contains the interesting 
account of his conversation with Pope Julius about 
Michelangelo and Raffaello; and a third, of 1518, 
turning upon the rivalry between the two great 
artists." But the bulk of Sebastiano’s gossipy 
and racy communications belongs to the period 
of thirteen years between 1520 and 1533;” then 
it suddenly breaks off, owing to Michelangelo’s 
having taken up his residence at Rome during 
the autumn of 1533. A definite rupture at some 
subsequent period separated the old friends. These 
letters are a mine of curious information respect- 
ing artistic life at Rome. They prove, beyond the 
possibility of doubt, that, whatever Buonarroti and 

1 Published respectively by Bottari, vol. viii. p. 42; Gaye, vol. ii. 
p. 487 ; and Gotti, vol. ii. p. 56. 

* Published in one volume by Milanesi and Le Pileur, Zes Oorre- 


spondants de Muchel-Ange, I. Seb. del Piombo. Paris: Librairie de 
PArt, 1890. 


346 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Sanzio may have felt, their flatterers, dependants, 
and creatures cherished the liveliest hostility and 
lived in continual rivalry. It is somewhat painful 
to think that Michelangelo could have lent a 
willing ear to the malignant babble of a man so 
much inferior to himself in nobleness of nature— 
have listened when Sebastiano taunted Raffaello as 
*‘ Prince of the Synagogue,” or boasted that a picture 
of his own was superior to “ the tapestries just come 
from Flanders.”* Yet Sebastiano was not the only 
friend to whose idle gossip the great sculptor indul- 
gently stooped. lLionardo, the saddle-maker, was 
even more offensive. He writes, for instance, upon 
New Year’s Day, 1519, to say that the Resurrection 
of Lazarus, for which Michelangelo had contributed 
some portion of the design, was nearly finished,’ and 
adds: ‘‘ Those who understand art rank it far above 
Raffaello. The vault, too, of Agostino Chigi has 
been exposed to view, and is a thing truly disgrace- 
ful to a great artist, far worse than the last hall of 
the Palace. Sebastiano has nothing to fear.” ° 

We gladly turn from these quarrels to what Sebas- 
tiano teaches us about Michelangelo’s personal char- 
acter. The general impression in the world was 
that he was very difficult to live with. Julius, for 
instance, after remarking that Raffaello changed his 

1 Raffaello designed his famous Cartoons for these tapestries. 

2 Gotti, vol. i. p. 127. 

3 The vault is the story of Cupid and Psyche at the Villa Farnesina, 


executed by Raffaello’s pupils. The last hall of the Vatican is that 
containing the Incendio del Borgo. 


MICHELANGELO’S TERRIBILITA. 347 


style in imitation of Buonarroti, continued :! ‘‘‘But he 
is terrible, as you see; one cannot get on with him.’ 
I answered to his Holiness that your terribleness 
hurt nobody, and that you only seem to be terrible 
because of your passionate devotion to the great 
works you have on hand.” Again, he relates Leo’s 
estimate of his friend’s character :? “ I know in what 
esteem the Pope holds you, and when he speaks of 
you, it would seem that he were talking about a 
brother, almost with tears in his eyes; for he has 
told me you were brought up together as boys” 
(Giovanni de’ Medici and the sculptor were exactly 
of the same age), ‘‘and shows that he knows and 
loves you. But you frighten everybody, even 
Popes!” Michelangelo must have complained of 
this last remark, for Sebastiano, in a letter dated a 
few days later, reverts to the subject: ° ‘Touching 
what you reply to me about your terribleness, I, for 
my part, do not esteem you terrible; and if I have 
not written on this subject, do not be surprised, 
seeing you do not strike me as terrible, except only 
in art—that is to say, in being the greatest master 
who ever lived: that is my opinion; if I am in error, 
the loss is mine.” later on, he tells us what 
Clement VII. thought :* “ One letter to your friend 
(the Pope) would be enough; you would soon see 


1 Gaye, vol. ii. p. 489. 

2 Les Correspondants, op. ctt., p. 20, date October 27, 1520. 
3 Ibid., p. 24, November 9, 1520. 

* Thid., p. 40, date April 29, 1531. 


348 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


what fruit it bore; because I know how he values 
you. He loves you, knows your nature, adores your 
work, and tastes its quality as much as it is possible 
for man to do. Indeed, his appreciation is miracu- 
lous, and such as ought to give great satisfaction to 
an artist. He speaks of you so honourably, and with 
such loving affection, that a father could not say of a 
son what he does of you. It is true that he has been 
erieved at times by. buzzings in his ear about you at 
the time of the siege of Florence, He shrugged his 
shoulders and cried, ‘ Michelangelo is in the wrong ; 


I never did him any injury.’” It is interesting to 
find Sebastiano, in the same letter, complaining of 
Michelangelo’s sensitiveness. “One favour I would 


request of you, that is, that you should come to 
learn your worth, and not stoop as you do to every 
little thing, and remember that eagles do not prey 
on flies. Enough! I know that you will laugh at 
my prattle; but Ido not care; Nature has made me 
so, and I am not Zuan da Rezzo.”* 


VIII. 


The year 1520 was one of much importance for 
Michelangelo. A Jzcordo dated March 10 gives a 


2 Giovanni da Reggio, the man who went with a letter of introduc- 
tion from Michelangelo to the Count of Canossa, Sebastiano writes his 
name in Venetian. 


FACADE OF S. LORENZO ABANDONED. — 349 


brief account of the last four years, winding up 
with the notice that* ‘‘ Pope Leo, perhaps because 
he wants to get the facade at S. Lorenzo finished 
quicker than according to the contract made with 
me, and I also consenting thereto, sets me free . . . 
and so he leaves me at liberty, under no obligation 
of accounting to any one for anything which I have 
had to do with him or others upon his account.” 
It appears from the draft of a letter without date 
that some altercation between Michelangelo and 
the Medici preceded this rupture.? He had been 
withdrawn from Serravezza to Florence in order that 
he might plan the new buildings at S. Lorenzo; and 
the workmen of the Opera del Duomo continued the 
quarrying business in his absence. Marbles which 
he had excavated for S. Lorenzo were granted by the 
Cardinal de’ Medici to the custodians of the cathedral, 
and no attempt was made to settle accounts. Michel- 
angelo’s indignation was roused by this indifference 
to his interests, and he complains in terms of ex- 
treme bitterness. ‘Then he sums up all that he has 
lost, in addition to expected profits. ‘“I do not 
reckon the wooden model for the said facade, which 
I made and sent to Rome; I do not reckon the 
period of three years wasted in this work; I do 
not reckon that I have been ruined (in health and 
strength perhaps) by the undertaking; I do not 
reckon the enormous insult put on me by being 
bronght here to do the work, and then seeing it 


1 Lettere, p. 581. 2 Lettere, No, ecclxxiv, 


350 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


taken away from me, and for what reason J have not 
yet learned; I do not reckon my house in Rome, 
which I left, and where marbles, furniture, and 
blocked-out statues have suffered to upwards of 500 
ducats. Omitting all these matters, out of the 2300 
ducats I received, only 500 remain in my hands.” 
When he was an old man, Michelangelo told 
Condivi that Pope Leo changed his mind about S. 
Lorenzo. In the often-quoted letter to the prelate 
he said: “Leo, not wishing me to work at the tomb 
of Julius, pretended that he wanted to complete the 
facade of S. Lorenzo at Florence.” What was the 
real state of the case can only be conjectured. It 
does not seem that the Pope took very kindly to the 
facade ; so the project may merely have been dropped 
through carelessness. Michelangelo neglected his 
own interests by not going to Rome, where his ene- 
mies kept pouring calumnies into the Pope's ears. 
The Marquis of Carrara, as reported by Lionardo, 
wrote to Leo that ‘‘he had sought to do you honour, 
and had done so to his best ability. It was your 
fault if he had not done more—the fault of your 
sordidness, your quarrelsomeness, your eccentric con- 
duct.”* When, then, a dispute arose between the 
Cardinal and the sculptor about the marbles, Leo 
may have felt that it was time to break off from 
an artist so impetuous and irritable. Still, whatever 
faults of temper Michelangelo may have had, and 
however difficult he was to deal with, nothing can 
1 Lettere, No, edxxxv., October 1542. 2 Gotti, vol. i. p. 135. 


DEATH OF RAFFAELLO. 351 


excuse the Medici for their wanton waste of his 
physical and mental energies at the height of their 
development. 

On the 6th of April 1520 Raffaello died, worn 
out with labour and with love, in the flower of his 
wonderful young manhood. It would be rash to 
assert that he had already given the world the best 
he had to offer, because nothing is so incalculable as 
the evolution of genius. Still we perceive now that 
his latest manner, both as regards style and feeling, 
and also as regards the method of execution by 
assistants, shows him to have been upon the verge 
of intellectual decline. While deploring Michel- 
angelo’s impracticability—that solitary, self-reliant, 
and exacting temperament which made him reject 
collaboration, and which doomed so much of his best 
work to incompleteness—we must remember that to 
the very end of his long life he produced nothing 
(except perhaps in architecture) which does not 
bear the seal and superscription of his fervent self. 
Raffaello, on the contrary, just before his death, 
seemed to be exhaling into a nebulous mist of bril- 
liant but unsatisfactory performances. Diffusing 
the rich and facile treasures of his genius through 
a host of lesser men, he had almost ceased to be a 
personality. HKven his own work, as proved by the 
Transfiguration, was deteriorating. The blossom 
was overblown, the bubble on the point of bursting ; 
and all those pupils who had gathered round him, 
drawing like planets from the sun their lustre, sank 


352 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


at his death into frigidity and insignificance. Only 
Giulio Romano burned with a torrid sensual splen- 
dour all his own. Fortunately for the history of the 
Renaissance, Giulio lived to evoke the wonder of 
the Mantuan villa, that climax of associated crafts of 
decoration, which remains for us the symbol of the 
dream of art indulged by Raffaello in his Roman 
period. 

These pupils of the Urbinate claimed now, on 
their master’s death, and claimed with good reason, 
the right to carry on his great work in the Borgian 
apartments of the Vatican. The Sala de’ Pontefici, 
or the Hall of Constantine, as it is sometimes called, 
remained to be painted. They possessed designs 
bequeathed by Raffaello for its decoration, and Leo, 
very rightly, decided to leave it in their hands. 
Sebastiano del Piombo, however, made a vigorous 
effort to obtain the work for himself. His Raising 
of Lazarus, executed in avowed competition with 
the Transfiguration, had brought him into the first 
rank of Roman painters. It was seen what the 
man, with Michelangelo to back him up, could do. 
We cannot properly appreciate this picture in its 
present state. The glory of the colouring has 
passed away; and it was precisely here that Sebas- 
tiano may have surpassed Raffaello, as he was 
certainly superior to the school. Sebastiano wrote 
letter after letter to Michelangelo in Florence.’ He 


1 Les Correspondants, op. cit., p. 6, April 20, 1520. It appears from the 
general tenour of the letters I shall quote that Sebastiano would have 


FRESCOES IN THE HALL OF CONSTANTINE. 353 


first mentions Raffaello’s death, ‘‘whom may God 
forgive;” then says that the ‘“‘garzon.” of the 
Urbinate are beginning to paint in oil upon the 
walls of the Sala dei Pontefici.? ‘‘I pray you to 
remember me, and to recommend me to the Cardinal, 
and if I am the man to undertake the job, I should 
like you to set me to work at it; for I shall not dis- 
grace you, as indeed I think I have not done already. 
I took my picture (the Lazarus) once more to the 
Vatican, and placed it beside Raffaello’s (the Trans- 
figuration), and I came without shame out of the 
comparison.” In answer, apparently, to this first 
letter on the subject, Michelangelo wrote a humo- 
rous recommendation of his friend and gossip to 
the Cardinal Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena. It runs 
thus:? “I beg your most reverend Lordship, not 
as a friend or servant, for I am not worthy to be 
either, but as a low fellow, poor and brainless, that 
you will cause Sebastian, the Venetian painter, now 
that Rafael is dead, to have some share in the 
works at the Palace. If it should seem to your 
Lordship that kind offices are thrown away upon 
aman like me, I might suggest that on some rare 
occasions a certain sweetness may be found in being 
kind even to fools, as onions taste well, for a change 


liked Michelangelo to obtain the commission for the Sala on his own 
account, and to intrust himself (Sebastiano) with the execution. 

1 There are two female figures painted in oil there, Comitas and 
Justitia, The effect is charming, making one dissatisfied with the 
chalky dryness of the fresco, 

2 Lettere, No, cceclxxiil. 

VOL. 1. Z 


354 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. ~ 


of food, to one who is tired of capons. You oblige 
men of mark every day. I beg your Lordship to 
try what obliging me is like. ‘he obligation will 
be a very great one, and Sebastian is a worthy man. 
If, then, your kind offers are thrown away on me, 
they will not be so on Sebastian, for I am certain he 
will prove a credit to your Lordship.” 

In his following missives Sebastiano flatters 
Michelangelo upon the excellent effect produced by 
the letter.1 ‘‘ The Cardinal informed me that the 
Pope had given the Hall of the Pontiffs to 
Raffaello’s ’prentices, and they have begun with a 
figure in oils upon the wall, a marvellous produc- 
tion, which eclipses all the rooms painted by their 
master, and proves that, when it is finished, this 
hall will beat the record, and be the finest thing 
done in painting since the ancients.” Then he asked 
if I had read your letter. I said, No. He laughed 
loudly, as though at a good joke, and I quitted 
him with compliments. Bandinelli, who is copying 
the Laocoon, tells me that the Cardinal showed him 
your letter, and also showed it to the Pope; in fact, 
nothing is talked about at the Vatican except your 
letter, and it makes everybody laugh.” He adds that 
he does not think the hall ought to be committed to 
young men. Having discovered what sort of things 
they meant to paint there, battle-pieces and vast 

1 Les Correspondants, pp. 6-16. 


2 The figure is a Caryatid, at the extreme end of the stanze. Fresco 
was afterwards adopted by Giulio Romano and II Fattore. 


SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO INTRIGUES. 355 


compositions, he judges the scheme beyond their 
scope. Michelangelo alone is equal to the task. 
Meanwhile, Leo, wishing to compromise matters, 
offered Sebastiano the great hall in the lower 
apartments of the Borgias, where Alexander VI. 
used to live, and where Pinturicchio painted— 
rooms shut up in pious horror by Julius when 
he came to occupy the palace of his hated and 
abominable predecessor." Sebastiano’s reliance upon 
Michelangelo, and his calculation that the way to 
get possession of the coveted commission would 
depend on the latter's consenting to supply him 
with designs, emerge in the following passage: 
“The Cardinal told me that he was ordered by 
the Pope to offer me the lower hall. I replied that 
I could accept nothing without your permission, or 
until your answer came, which is not to hand at 
the date of writing. I added that, unless I were 
engaged to Michelangelo, even if the Pope com- 
manded me to paint that hall, I would not do so, 
because I do not think myself inferior to Raffaello’s 
’prentices, especially after the Pope, with his own 
mouth, had offered me half of the upper hall; and 
anyhow, I do not regard it as creditable to myself 


1 See Yriarte, Autour des Borgias, for an account of these apart- 
ments, with plans and illustrations. Cesare Borgia inhabited the upper 
set of rooms. The lower hall was severely damaged on June 20, 1500, 
when lightning struck the Vatican, and nearly killed Pope Alexander, 
who was throned upon the dais. The roof and great chimney crashed 
in, Since that accident it remained unrepaired. The decoration was 
eventually assigned to Perino del Vaga, 


386 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


to paint the cellars, and they to have the gilded 

chambers. I said they had better be allowed to go 
on painting. He answered that the Pope had only 
done this to avoid rivalries. The men possessed 
designs ready for that hall, and I ought to remember 
that the lower one was also a hall of the Pontiffs. 
My reply was that I would have nothing to do with 
it; so that now they are laughing at me, and I am 
so worried that I am well-nigh mad.” Later on he 
adds: “It has been my object, through you and 
your authority, to execute vengeance for myself 
and you too, letting malignant fellows know that 
there are other demigods alive beside Raffael da 
Urbino and his ’prentices.” The vacillation of Leo 
in this business, and his desire to make things 
pleasant, are characteristic of the man, who acted 
just in the same way while negotiating with princes. 


IX. 


When Michelangelo complained that he was 
‘“‘rovinato per detta opera di San Lorenzo,” he pro- 
bably did not mean that he was ruined in purse, 
but in health and energy.’ For some while after 
Leo gave him his liberty, he seems to have remained 
comparatively inactive. During this period the sac- 
risty at S. Lorenzo and the Medicean tombs were 


+ Lettere, ceclxxiv. p. 416. 


SACRISTY OF S. LORENZO. 357 


probably in contemplation. Giovanni Cambi says 
that they were begun at the end of March 1520.” 
But we first hear something definite about them in 
a icordo which extends from April 9 to August 
19, 1521.. Michelangelo says that on the former 
of these dates he received money from the Cardinal 
de’ Medici for a journey to Carrara, whither he went 
and stayed about three weeks, ordering marbles for 
‘‘the tombs which are to be placed in the new sacristy 
at S. Lorenzo. And there I made out drawings to 
scale, and measured models in clay for the said 
tombs.” He left his assistant Scipione of Settig- 
nano at Carrara as overseer of the work, and returned 
to Florence. On the 20th of July following he went 
again to Carrara, and stayed nine days. On the 
16th of August the contractors for the blocks, all of 
which were excavated from the old Roman quarry 
of Polvaccio, came to Florence, and were paid for on 
account. Scipione returned on the 19th of August. 
It may be added that the name of Stefano, the 
miniaturist, who acted as Michelangelo’s factotum 

1 An obscure phrase in the document quoted above (No. ccclxxiv.) has 
been taken to indicate that the project had been conceived as early as 
the spring of 1519. “At that same time the Cardinal, by orders from 
the Pope, removed me from my work of quarrying, because they said 
they did not wish me to be bothered with excavating marbles, and they 
would have them forwarded to me in Florence, and made a new con- 
vention.” ‘The new convention, however, may have been a new arrange- 
ment as to the manner of carrying on and paying the fagade. 

2 Vasari, xii. 358. If Cambi reckoned in Florentine style, his refer- 
ence would be to March 1521, which agrees with the Ricordo to be quoted 


next above. 
3 Lettere, p. 582. 


358 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


through several years, is mentioned for the first time 
in this minute and interesting record. 

That the commission for the sacristy came from 
the Cardinal Giulio, and not from the Pope, appears 
in the document I have just cited. The fact is con- 
firmed by a letter written to Fattucci in 1523:? 
‘“About two years have elapsed since I returned 
from Carrara, whither I had gone to purchase marbles 
for the tombs of the Cardinal.” The letter is curious 
in several respects, because it shows how changeable 
through many months Giulio remained about the 
scheme; at one time bidding Michelangelo prepare 
plans and models, at another refusing to listen to 
any proposals; then warming up again, and saying 
that, if he lived long enough, he meant to erect the 
facade as well. The final issue of the affair was, that 
after Giulio became Pope Clement VII., the sacristy 
went forward, and Michelangelo had to put the 
sepulchre of Julius aside. During the pontificate 
of Adrian, we must believe that he worked upon 
his statues for that monument, since a Cardinal 
was hardly powerful enough to command his ser- 
vices; but when the Cardinal became Pope, and 
threatened to bring an action against him for moneys 
received, the case was altered. The letter to Fat- 
tucci, when carefully studied, leads to these con- 
clusions. 

Very little is known to us regarding his private 
life in the year 1521. We only possess one letter, 


1 Lettere, No. cceclxxix. 


THE CRISTO RISORTO. 355 


relating to the purchase of a house." In October he 
stood godfather to the infant son of Niccolo Soderini, 
nephew of his old patron, the Gonfalonier.” 

This barren period is marked by only one con- 
siderable event—that is, the termination of the 
Cristo Risorto, or Christ Triumphant, which had been 
ordered by Metello Varj dei Porcari in 1514. The 
statue seems to have been rough-hewn at the quarries, 
packed up, and sent to Pisa on its way to Florence 
as early as December 1518,° but it was not until 
March 1521 that Michelangelo began to occupy 
himself about it seriously. He then despatched 
Pietro Urbano to Rome with orders to complete it 
there,* and to arrange with the purchaser for placing 


1 Lettere, No. ccclxxv., addressed to Giusto di Matteo in Pisa. The 
house was in Via Mozza. Pietro Urbano refers to the transaction in a 
letter written from Rome, which proves that he was then at work on the 
Cristo Risorto, The month was March. 

2 Gotti, vol. i, p. 145. 

3 See Lettere, No, cclxix., addressed to Lionardo, the saddler, in 
Rome. Milanesi gives the date, December 21, 1518. It shows that 
Michelangelo was then waiting for the marble, and hoping to begin work 
upon it. 

4 This appears from one of Michelangelo’s letters, Lettere, No, ecclxxv. 
Gotti (vol. i. p. 140) says that the month was August, but gives no reason. 
Since Sebastiano began to write about Urbano’s doings on the 6th of 
September, the young man must already have been some time in 
Rome. We possess a Ricordo by Michelangelo (Carte Machelangiolesche, 
No. 2) which proves that on the 2nd of May 1521 Michelangelo paid 
Lionardo in Rome four ducats on account of Pietro; also a letter from 
Pietro to Michelangelo, without date, written from Rome. In it Pietro 
says he has heard that his master had been to Carrara, and is about to 
buy the house “della Masina.” Now Michelangelo went to Carrara in 
April, and in March he wrote a letter about this house (No. ceclxxv.). 
Pietro informs him that the statue has not yet arrived, but he hopes for 
it about the 19th. He also promises to avoid the company of dissolute 


360 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


it upon a pedestal. Sebastiano’s letters contain some 
references to this work, which enable us to under- 
stand how wrong it would be to accept it as a repre- 
sentative piece of Buonarroti’s own handicraft. On 
the 9th of November 1520 he writes that his gossip, 
Giovanni da Reggio, “‘ goes about saying that you 
did not execute the figure, but that it is the work of 
Pietro Urbano. Take good care that it should be seen 
to be from your hand, so that poltroons and babblers 
may burst.”* On the 6th of September 1521 he re- 
turns to the subject.” Urbano was at this time resident 
in Rome, and behaving himself so badly, in Sebas- 
tiano’s opinion, that he feels bound to make a severe 
report. ‘In the first place, you sent him to Rome 
with the statue to finish and erect it. What he 
did and left undone you know already. But I must 
inform you that he has spoiled the marble wherever 
he touched it. In particular, he shortened the right 
foot and cut the toes off; the hands too, especially 
the right hand, which holds the cross, have been 
mutilated in the fingers. Frizzi says they seem to 
have been worked by a biscuit-maker, not wrought 
in marble, but kneaded by some one used to 
dough. I am no judge, not being familiar with 


Florentines more than he had previously done, This throws light on 
what followed. Florentine society in Rome was notorious for vicious 
conduct. His letter must have been written early in April. It is pub- 
lished by Daelli, Carte Michelangiolesche Inedite, No. 7. 

1 Les Correspondants, p. 24. Urbano was then at Florence, working on 
the statue under Michelangelo’s directions, 

2 Tbid., p. 28. 





THE RISEN CHRIST. 


re 





PIETRO URBANO IN ROME. 361 


the method of stone-cutting; but I can tell you 
that the fingers look to me very stiff and dumpy.’ 
It is clear also that he has been peddling at the 
beard ; and I believe my little boy would have done so 
with more sense, for it looks as though he had used 
a knife without a point to chisel the hair. This can 
easily be remedied, however. He has also spoiled 
one of the nostrils. A little more, and the whole 
nose would have been ruined, and only God could 
have restored it.” Michelangelo apparently had 
already taken measures to transfer the Christ from 
Urbano’s hands to those of the sculptor Federigo 
Frizzi. This irritated his former friend and work- 
man. “Pietro shows a very ugly and malignant 
spirit after finding himself cast off by you. He 
does not seem to care for you or any one alive, but 
thinks he is a great master. He will soon find out 
his mistake, for the poor young man will never be 
able to make statues. He has forgotten all he knew 
of art, and the knees of your Christ are worth more 
than all Rome together.” It was Sebastiano’s wont 
to run babbling on in this way. Once again he 
returns to Pietro Urbano. ‘Iam informed that he 
has left Rome; he has not been seen for several 
days, has shunned the Court, and I certainly believe 
that he will come to a badend. He gambles, wants 
all the women of the town, struts like a Ganymede 
in velvet shoes through Rome, and flings his cash 


1 There is no sign of this in the statue. A little stiff, perhaps, but 
not cut down in length. 


362 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


about. Poor fellow! I am sorry for him, since, after 
all, he is but young.” 

Such was the end of Pietro Urbano. Michelangelo 
was certainly unfortunate with his apprentices. One 
cannot help fancying he may have spoiled them by 
indulgence. Vasari, mentioning Pietro, calls him 
“a person of talent, but one who never took the 
pains to work.” ? 

Frizzi brought the Christ Triumphant into its 
present state, patching up what “the lither lad” 
from Pistoja had boggled.’ Buonarroti, who was 
sincerely attached to Varj, and felt his artistic 
reputation now at stake, offered to make a new 
statue. But the magnanimous Roman gentleman 
replied that he was entirely satisfied with the one 
he had received. He regarded and esteemed it “as 
a thing of gold,” and, in refusing Michelangelo's 
offer, added that ‘‘this proved his noble soul and 
generosity, inasmuch as, when he had already made 
what could not be surpassed and was incomparable, 
he still wanted to serve his friend better.”* The 
price originally stipulated was paid, and Varj added 
an autograph testimonial, strongly affirming his con- 
tentment with the whole transaction. 

These details prove that the Christ of the Minerva 
must be regarded as a mutilated masterpiece. Michel- 

VOL xt p. 274. 

2 Hardly anything is known about this sculptor. See above, p. 344 
for a mention of his name. 


3 Gotti, i. 143. There are twenty-three letters from Varj, chiefly 
about these affairs, in the Arch. Buon., Cod. xi., Nos. 740-761. 


THE CHRIST OF THE MINERVA. 363 


angelo is certainly responsible for the general con- 
ception, the pose, and a large portion of the finished 
surface, details of which, especially in the knees, 
so much admired by Sebastiano, and in the robust 
arms, are magnificent. He designed the figure 
wholly nude, so that the heavy bronze drapery 
which now surrounds the loins, and bulges drooping 
from the left hip, breaks the intended harmony of 
lines. Yet, could this brawny man have ever sug- 
gested any distinctly religious idea?’ Christ, victor 
over Death and Hell, did not triumph by ponderosity 
and sinews. ‘The spiritual nature of his conquest, 
the ideality of a divine soul disencumbered from 
the flesh, to which it once had stooped in love for 
sinful man, ought certainly to have been empha- 
sised, if anywhere through art, in the statue of a 
Risen Christ. Substitute a scaling-ladder for the 
cross, and here we have a fine life- guardsman, 
stripped and posing for some classic battle-piece. 
We cannot quarrel with Michelangelo about the 
face and head. ‘Those vulgarly handsome features, 
that beard, pomaded and curled by a barber’s 
‘prentice, betray no signs of his inspiration. Only 
in the arrangement of the hair, hyacinthine locks 
descending to the shoulders, do we recognise the 
touch of the divine sculptor. 

The Christ became very famous. Francis I. had 


1 Heath Wilson says: “This statue, considered as a work of expres- 
sion and religious art, is in both respects without a parallel in ita 
irreverence” (p. 266). 


364 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


it cast and sent to Paris, to be repeated in bronze. 
What is more strange, it has long been the object 
of a religious cult. The right foot, so mangled 
by poor Pietro, wears a fine brass shoe, in order to 
prevent its being kissed away. This almost makes 
one think of Goethe’s hexameter: ‘‘ Wunderthatige 
Bilder sind meist nur schlechte Gemilde.” Still 
it must be remembered that excellent critics have 
found the whole work admirable. Gsell-Fels says:’ 
‘“Ttis his second Moses; in movement and physique 
one of the greatest masterpieces; as a Christ-ideal, 
the heroic conception of a humanist.” That last 
observation is just. We may remember that Vida 
was composing his Christiad while Frizzi was curl- 
ing the beard of the Cristo Risorto. Vida always 
speaks of Jesus as Heros, and of God the Father as 
Superum Pater Nimbipotens or Regnator Olympr.’ 


1 Rom und Mittel-Italien, vol. ii. p. 370. Burckhardt (Cicerone, 
Sculptur, Leipzig, Seeman, 1869, p. 672) says: “It is one of his most 
amiable works. The upper part of the body is one of the finest 
motives of later modern art. The sweet expression and formation of 
the face may be as little suitable to the Highest as any Christ is ; and 
yet,” &. Even Heath Wilson, who had a proper sense of the impro- 
priety, artistic and religious, of this Christ, remarks that “ the hair of 
the beard, which must be assumed to be Frizzi’s work, does him great 
credit.” This beard consists of patches, like tigers’ claws or foliage, 
carved out to hide anatomical structure. None of the favourable critics 
notice the indecent and unnatural bulk of the abdomen. 

* See my Renatssance in Italy, vol. ii. p. 399. I ought to add that, 
since I wrote the above critique, working mainly by the help of Alinari’s 
photographs, I have studied the statue again in the church of the 
Minerva. Under that dim light, it diffuses a grace and sweetness which 
no reproduction renders, Without retracting my opinion, I recognise 8 
kind of fascination in the figure, 


CHAPTER VIIL 


1, Death of Leo X., December 1, 1521.—Estimate of his character.— 
Election of Adrian VI.—Disgust in Rome.—Giulio dei Medici made 
Pope upon his death in September 1523.—2. Scanty details regard- 
ing Michelangelo’s life during the pontificate of Adrian.—Various 
minor commissions from Bologna, Cardinal Grimani, Genoa,—An 
irritable letter to Lodovico.— 3. Clement VII. pushes on the 
Sacristy, and projects the Library of 8S. Lorenzo.—Michelangelo’s 
dislike to be employed on architectural work.—Arrangements for 
a pension from the Pope.—Stefano Miniatore.—The Sacristy roofed 
in before May 1524.—Troubles with the heirs of Julius.~—Michel- 
angelo’s wretchedness about the tomb.—4. History of successive 
schemes for the decoration of the Sacristy.—The number of portrait- 
statues originally contemplated.—Eventual adoption of a mural 
plan.—Light thrown upon the matter by original drawings,—5. The 
Duke of Urbino begins a lawsuit against Michelangelo for non- 
performance of contract.—Michelangelo appeals to Clement for 
assistance in these difficulties. —Negotiations.— Work upon the 
statues for S. Lorenzo goes forward.—He falls seriously ill.—6. 
Sebastiano’s portrait of Anton Francesco degli Albizzii—Clement 
urges on the Library.—Michelangelo employs collaborators,—The 
sack of Rome and the siege of Florence (1527-1530) suspend 
active operations.—A ciborium for S, Lorenzo,— Michelangelo's 
letter upon a project for erecting a Colossus, 


I. 


Lzo X. expired upon the 1st day of December 
1521. The vacillating game he played in European 
politics had just been crowned with momentary suc- 
cess. Some folk believed that the Pope died of joy 
after hearing that his Imperial allies had entered 
the town of Milan ; others thought that he succumbed 


365 


366 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


to poison. We do not know what caused his death. 
But the unsoundness of his constitution, overtaxed 
by dissipation and generous living, in the midst of 
public cares for which the man had hardly nerve 
enough, may suffice to account for a decease cer- 
tainly sudden and premature. Michelangelo, born 
in the same year, was destined to survive him 
through more than eight lustres of the life of man. 

Leo was a personality whom it is impossible to 
praise without reserve. The Pope at that time in 
Italy had to perform three separate functions. His 
first duty was to the Church. Leo left the See of 
Rome worse off than he found it: financially bankrupt, 
compromised by vague schemes set on foot for the 
agerandisement of his family, discredited by many 
shameless means for raising money upon spiritual 
securities. His second duty was to Italy. Leo left 
the peninsula so involved in a mesh of meaningless 
entanglements, diplomatic and aimless wars, that 
anarchy and violence proved to be the only exit from 
the situation. His third duty was to that higher cul- 
ture which Italy dispensed to Europe, and of which 
the Papacy had made itself the leading propagator. 
Here Leo failed almost as conspicuously as in all 
else he attempted. He debased the standard of art 
and literature by his ill-placed liberalities, seeking 
quick returns for careless expenditure, not selecting 
the finest spirits of his age for timely patronage, 
diffusing no lofty enthusiasm, but breeding round 
him mushrooms of mediocrity. 


POPE ADRIAN VI. 367 


Nothing casts stronger light upon the low tone of 
Roman society created by Leo than the outburst of 
frenzy and execration which exploded when a Fleming 
was elected as his successor. Adrian Florent, belong- 
ing to a family surnamed Dedel, emerged from the 
scrutiny of the Conclave into the pontifical chair. 
He had been the tutor of Charles V., and this may 
suffice to account for his nomination. Cynical wits 
ascribed that circumstance to the direct and un- 
expected action of the Holy Ghost. He was the 
one foreigner who occupied the seat of S. Peter 
after the period when the metropolis of Western 
Christendom became an Italian principality. Adrian, 
by his virtues and his failings, proved that modern 
Rome, in her social corruption and religious in- 
difference, demanded an Italian Pontiff. Single- 
minded and simple, raised unexpectedly by cir- 
cumstances into his supreme position, he shut 
his eyes resolutely to art and culture, abandoned 
diplomacy, and determined to act only as the 
chief of the Catholic Church. In_ ecclesiastical 
matters Adrian was undoubtedly a worthy man. 
He returned to the original conception of his duty 
as the Primate of Occidental Christendom ; and what 
might have happened had he lived to impress his 
spirit upon Rome, remains beyond the reach of cal- 
culation. Dare we conjecture that the sack of 1527 
would have been averted ? 

Adrian reigned only a year and eight months, 
He had no time to do anything of permanent value, 


368 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


and was hardly powerful enough to do it, even if 
time and opportunity had been afforded. In the 
thunderstorm gathering over Rome and the Papacy, 
he represents that momentary lull during which 
men hold their breath and murmur. All the place- 
seekers, parasites, flatterers, second-rate artificers, 
folk of facile talents, whom Leo gathered round — 
him, vented their rage against a Pope who lived 
sparely, shut up the Belvedere, called statues * idols 
of the Pagans,” and spent no farthing upon 
twangling lutes and frescoed chambers. Truly 
Adrian is one of the most grotesque and significant 
figures upon the page of modern history. His per- 
sonal worth, his inadequacy to the needs of the age, 
and his incompetence to control the tempest loosed 
by Della Roveres, Borgias, and Medici around him, 
give the man a tragic irony. 

After his death, upon the 23rd of September 1523, 
the Cardinal Giulio dei Medici was made Pope. He 
assumed the title of Clement VII. upon the 9th of 
November. The wits who saluted Adrian’s doctor 
with the title of “Saviour of the Fatherland,” now 
rejoiced at the election of an Italian and a Medici. 
The golden years of Leo’s reign would certainly 
return, they thought; having no foreknowledge of 
the tragedy which was so soon to be enacted, first at 
Rome, and afterwards at Florence. Michelangelo 
wrote to his friend Topolino at Carrara: “ You will — 
have heard that Medici is made Pope; all the world 


1 Lettere, No. ccclxxx. 


VARIOUS COMMISSIONS. 369 


seems to me to be delighted, and I think that here 
at Florence great things will soon be set on foot 
in our art. ‘Therefore, serve well and faithfully.” 


II. 


Our records are very scanty, both as regards 
personal details and art-work, for the life of Michel- 
angelo during the pontificate of Adrian VI. The 
high esteem in which he was held throughout Italy 
is proved by three incidents which may shortly 
be related. In 1522, the Board of Works for the 
cathedral church of S. Petronio at Bologna de- 
cided to complete the facade. Various architects 
sent in designs; among them Peruzzi competed with 
one in the Gothic style, and another in that of the 
Classical revival. Great differences of opinion arose 
in the city as to the merits of the rival plans, and 
the Board in July invited Michelangelo, through 
their secretary, to come and act as umpire. They 
promised to reward him magnificently.* It does not 
appear that Michelangelo accepted the offer. In 
1523, Cardinal Grimani, who was a famous collector 
of art-objects, wrote begging for some specimen of 
his craft. Grimani left it open to him “to choose 
material and subject; painting, bronze, or marble, 
according to his fancy.” Michelangelo must have 


1 See the letter of Ascanio de Novi, reported by Gotti, vol. i. p. 176. 
VOL, I. 2A 


370 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


promised to fulfil the commission, for we have a 
letter from Grimani thanking him effusively." He 
offers to pay fifty ducats at the commencement of the 
work, and what Michelangelo thinks fit to demand 
at its conclusion: ‘‘for such is the excellence of 
your ability, that we shall take no thought of money- 
value.” Grimani was Patriarch of Aquileja. In the 
same year, 1523, the Genoese entered into negotia- 
tions for a colossal statue of Andrea Doria, which 
they desired to obtain from the hand of Michel- 
angelo. Its execution must have been seriously 
contemplated, for the Senate of Genoa banked 300 
ducats for the purpose.” We regret that Michel- 
angelo could not carry out a work so congenial to 
his talent as this ideal portrait of the mighty Signor 
Capitano would have been ; but we may console our- 
selves by reflecting that even his energies were not 
equal to all tasks imposed upon him. The real matter 
for lamentation is that they suffered so much waste in 
the service of vacillating Popes. 

To the year 1523 belongs, in all probability, the last 
extant letter which Michelangelo wrote to his father. 
Lodovico was dissatisfied with a contract which had 
been drawn up on the 16th of June in that year, and 
by which a certain sum of money, belonging to the 
dowry of his late wife, was settled in reversion upon 
his eldest son.2 Michelangelo explains the tenor 


1 Gotti, vol. ii. p. 61, date July 11, 1523. 
2 Gotti, i. 177. 
3 Lettere, No. xliv. See Milanesi’s note. 


ANGRY LETTER TO LODOVICO. 371 


of the deed, and then breaks forth into the follow- 
ing bitter and ironical invective: ‘“‘If my life is 
a nuisance to you, you have found the means of 
protecting yourself, and will inherit the key of that 
treasure which you say that I possess. And you will 
be acting rightly; for all Florence knows how 
mighty rich you were, and how I always robbed 
you, and deserve to be chastised. Highly will men 
think of you for this. Cry out and tell folk all you 
choose about me, but do not write again, for you 
prevent my working. What I have now to do is to 
make good all you have had from me during the 
past five-and-twenty years. I would rather not tell 
you this, but I cannot help it. Take care, and be 
on your guard against those whom it concerns you. 
A man dies but once, and does not come back again 
to patch up things ill done. You have put off till 
the death to do this. May God assist you !” 

In another draft of this letter Lodovico is accused 
of going about the town complaining that he was 
once a rich man, and that Michelangelo had robbed 
him. Still, we must not take this for proved; one 
of the great artist’s main defects was an irritable 
suspiciousness, which caused him often to exaggerate 
slights and to fancy insults. He may have attached 
too much weight to the grumblings of an old man, 
whom at the bottom of his heart he loved dearly. 


372 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


IIT. 


Clement, immediately after his election, resolved 
on setting Michelangelo at work in earnest on the 
Sacristy. At the very beginning of January he also 
projected the building of the Laurentian Library, 
and wrote, through his Roman agent, Giovanni 
Francesco Fattucci, requesting to have two plans 
furnished, one in the Greek, the other in the Latin 
style! Michelangelo replied as follows:* “I gather 
from your last that his Holiness our Lord wishes 
that I should furnish the design for the library. I 
have received no information, and do not know 
where it is to be erected. It is true that Stefano 
talked to me about the scheme, but I paid no heed. 
When he returns from Carrara I will inquire, and 
will do all that is in my power, albeit architecture 1s 
not my profession.” There is something pathetic in 
this reiterated assertion that his real art was sculp- 
ture. At the same time Clement wished to provide 
for him for life. He first proposed that Buonarroti 
should promise not to marry, and should enter into 
minor orders. This would have enabled him to 
enjoy some ecclesiastical benefice, but it would also 
have handed him over firmly bound to the service 
of the Pope. Circumstances already hampered him 
enough, and Michelangelo, who chose to remain 


1 Correspondence in Gotti, vol. i. pp. 165, 166. 
2 Lettere, No. ccclxxxv. 


THE LIBRARY OF S. LORENZO. B73 


his own master, refused. As Berni wrote: ‘‘ Voleva 
far da se, non comandato.” As an alternative, a pen- 
sion was suggested. It appears that he only asked 
for fifteen ducats a month, and that his friend Pietro 
Gondi had proposed twenty-five ducats. Fattucci, 
on the 13th of January 1524, rebuked him in affec- 
tionate terms for his want of pluck, informing him 
that “Jacopo Salviati has given orders that Spina 
should be instructed to pay you a monthly provision 
of fifty ducats.” Moreover, all the disbursements 
made for the work at S. Lorenzo were to be pro- 
vided by the same agent in Florence, and to pass 
through Michelangelo’s hands.’ A house was as- 
signed him, free of rent, at S. Lorenzo, in order 
that he might be near his work. Henceforth he 
was in almost weekly correspondence with Giovanni 
Spina on affairs of business, sending in accounts 
and drawing money by means of his then trusted 
servant, Stefano, the miniaturist.” 

That Stefano did not always behave himself 
according to his master’s wishes appears from the 
following characteristic letter addressed by Michel- 
angelo to his friend Pietro Gondi:* “The poor 
man, who is ungrateful, has a nature of this sort, 
that if you help him in his needs, he says that what 


1 See Gotti, i. 157. , 

2 Giovanni Spina, the Pope’s Florentine ageut, seems to have been 
in the bank of the Salviati (Lettere, No. cccxcii.) Stefano di Tom- 
maso started in life as a miniatore. Michelangelo made him clerk of 
the works at S. Lorenzo, overseer at Carrara, &., in the way he adopted 
for the employment of his principal garzone. 

8 Lettere, No. ccclxxxvii., date January 26, 1524. 


374 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


you gave him came out of superfluities; if you put 
him in the way of doing work for his own good, he 
says you were obliged, and set him to do it because 
you were incapable; and all the benefits which he 
received he ascribes to the necessities of the bene- 
factor. But when everybody can see that you acted 
out of pure benevolence, the ingrate waits until you 
make some public mistake, which gives him the 
opportunity of maligning his benefactor and winning 
credence, in order to free himself from the obligation 
under which he lies. This has invariably happened 
in my case. No one ever entered into relations with 
me—I speak of workmen—to whom I did not do good 
with all my heart. Afterwards, some trick of temper, 
or some madness, which they say is in my nature, 
which hurts nobody except myself, gives them an 
excuse for speaking evil of me and calumniating 
my character. Such is the reward of all honest 
men.” 

These general remarks, he adds, apply to Stefano, 
whom he placed in a position of trust and responsi- 
bility, in order to assist him. ‘“ What I do is done 
for his good, because I have undertaken to benefit 
the man, and cannot abandon him; but let him not 
imagine or say that I am doing it because of my 
necessities, for, God be praised, I do not stand in 
need of men.” He then begs Gondi to discover 
what Stefano’s real mind is. This is a matter of 
great importance to him for several reasons, and 
especially for this: “If I omitted to justify myself, 


STEFANO MINIATORE. 375 


and were to put another in his place, I should be 
published among the Piagnoni for the biggest traitor 
who ever lived, even though I were in the right.” 

We conclude, then, that Michelangelo thought of 
dismissing Stefano, but feared lest he should get 
into trouble with the powerful political party, fol- 
lowers of Savonarola, who bore the name of Piagnoni 
at Florence. Gondi must have patched the quarrel up, 
for we still find Stefano’s name in the Ricord: down 
to April 4, 1524. Shortly after that date, Antonio 
Mini seems to have taken his place as Michelangelo’s 
right-hand man of business.’ These details are not 
so insignificant as they appear. ‘They enable us to 
infer that the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo may have been 
walled and roofed in before the end of April 1524; 
for, in an undated letter to Pope Clement, Michel- 
angelo says that Stefano has finished the lantern, 
and that it is universally admired.” With regard to 
this lantern, folk told him that he would make it 
better than Brunelleschi’s. ‘“‘ Different perhaps, but 
better, no!” he answered. 

1 Lettere, pp. 592, 593. Onan original drawing in the British Museum 
is written in Michelangelo’s autograph, “ Disegna Antonio, disegna 
Antonio, disegna e non perder tempo.” A pleasant record of his 
interest in his pupils. See Fagan, op, cit., p. 99. 

2 Lettere, No. ccclxxxi. The date of the roofing in of the Sacristy 
is generally given as 1525; but, if Stefano constructed the cupola, 
we ought to suppose that he did it before the date of his disappearance 
from the icordt. Also we have a note of November 9, 1524, record- 
ing a payment made for glazing the windows of the lantern with oiled 
paper. See Lettere, p. 596. Indeed the Ricordi prove that the build- 


ing was going briskly forward during the early months of 1524. Con- 
sult Springer, vol. ii. p. 214. 


376 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


The letter to Clement just quoted is interesting 
in several respects. The boldness of the beginning 
makes one comprehend how Michelangelo was ter- 
rible to even Popes :— 

‘Most BLess—eD FATHER,—Inasmuch as inter- 
mediates are often the cause of grave misunder- 
standings, I have summoned up courage to write 
without their aid to your Holiness about the tombs 
at S. Lorenzo. I repeat, | know not which is pre- 
ferable, the evil that does good, or the good that 
hurts. I am certain, mad and wicked as I may be, 
that if I had been allowed to go on as I had begun, 
all the marbles needed for the work would have 
been in Florence to-day, and properly blocked out, 
with less cost than has been expended on them up 
to this date; and they would have been superb, as 
are the others I have brought here.” 

After this he entreats Clement to give him full 
authority in carrying out the work, and not to put 
superiors over him. Michelangelo, we know, was 
extremely impatient of control and interference; and 
we shall see, within a short time, how excessively 
the watching and spying of busybodies worried and 
disturbed his spirits.’ 

But these were not his only sources of annoyance. 
The heirs of Pope Julius, perceiving that Michel- 
angelo’s time and energy were wholly absorbed at 
S. Lorenzo, began to threaten him with a lawsuit. 
Clement, wanting apparently to mediate between 

1 Especially Lettere, No, cd. 


TROUBLES ABOUT TOMB OF JULIUS. 377 


the litigants, ordered Fattucci to obtain a report 
from the sculptor, with a full account of how matters 
stood. This evoked the long and interesting docu- 
ment which has been so often cited... There is no 
doubt whatever that Michelangelo acutely felt the 
justice of the Duke of Urbino’s grievances against 
him. He was broken-hearted at seeming to be want- 
ing in his sense of honour and duty. People, he 
says, accused him of putting the money which had 
been paid for the tomb out at usury, “living mean- 
while at Florence and amusing himself.” It also 
hurt him deeply to be distracted from the cherished 
project of his early manhood in order to superintend 
works for which he had no enthusiasm, and which 
lay outside his sphere of operation. 

It may, indeed, be said that during these years 
Michelangelo lived in a perpetual state of uneasiness 
and anxiety about the tomb of Julius. As far back 
as 1518 the Cardinal Leonardo Grosso, Bishop of 
Agen, and one of Julius’s executors, found it neces- 
sary to hearten him with frequent letters of encour- 
agement. In one of these, after commending his 
zeal in extracting marbles and carrying on the monu- 
ment, the Cardinal proceeds:* ‘Be then of good 


1 Lettere, No. ccclxxxiii. I will place a translation of it in the 


Appendix. 
2 Arch, Buon., Cod, vii. No. 136. The letter is dated October 24, 
1518. “State de bono animo el non prenderti passione alcuna che pid 


crediamo a una minima vostra parola che a tutto el resto ne dicesse el 
contrario. Cognoscemo la fede vostra et tanto li credemo devotissimo a 
noi proprii, et se bisogneré cosa alcuna de quanto noi possemo volemo 
com altre volte ve havemo ditto ne piagliati ogni ampla sigureté perché 


378 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


courage, and do not yield to any perturbations of the 
spirit, for we put more faith in your smallest word 
than if all the world should say the contrary. We 
know your loyalty, and believe you to be wholly 
devoted to our person; and if there shall be need of 
aught which we can supply, we are willing, as we 
have told you on other occasions, to do so; rest then 
in all security of mind, because we love you from 
the heart, and desire to do all that may be agreeable 
to you.” ‘This good friend was dead at the time we 
have now reached, and the violent Duke Francesco 
Maria della Rovere acted as the principal heir of 
Pope Julius.’ 

In a passion of disgust he refused to draw his 
pension, and abandoned the house at 8. Lorenzo. 
This must have happened in March 1524, for his 
friend Leonardo writes to him from Rome upon the 
24th:* ‘I am also told that you have declined 
your pension, which seems to me mere madness, 
and that you have thrown the house up, and do not 
work. Friend and gossip, let me tell you that 
you have plenty of enemies, who speak their 


ve amamo ex corde et desideramo farvi ogni piacere.” I doubt whether 
I have got the words right of this passage. The two following letters, 
Nos. 136 and 137, dated December 29, 1518, and May 19, 1519 (2), are 
to the same effect, breathing a spirit of thorough confidence and warm 
attachment. 

1 The Cardinal Aginensis died in the autumn of 1520. Sebastiano 
del Piombo, writing to Michelangelo, says that poison was suspected. 
6A dirti el vero si bisbiglia che ’l cardinale é stato avvelenato.” Les 
Correspondants, p. 20. 

2 Gotti, i. 157. 


DISGUST AND DESPERATION. 379 


worst; also that the Pope and Pucci and Jacopo 
Salviati are your friends, and have plighted their 
troth to you. It is unworthy of you to break your 
word to them, especially in an affair of honour. 
Leave the matter of the tomb to those who wish 
you well, and who are able to set you free without 
the least encumbrance, and take care you do not 
come short in the Pope’s work. Die first. And 
take the pension, for they give it with a willing 
heart.” How long he remained in contumacy is 
not quite certain; apparently until the 29th of 
August. We have a letter written on that day to 
Giovanni Spina:’ “After I left you yesterday, I 
went back thinking over my affairs; and, seeing 
that the Pope has set his heart on 8S. Lorenzo, and 
how he urgently requires my service, and has ap- 
pointed me a good provision in order that I may 
serve him with more convenience and speed; seeing 
also that not to accept it keeps me back, and that I 
have no good excuse for not serving his Holiness ; 
I have changed my mind, and whereas I hitherto 
refused, I now demand it (2.e., the salary), consider- 
ing this far wiser, and for more reasons than I care 
to write; and, more especially, | mean to return to 
the house you took for me at S. Lorenzo, and settle 
down there like an honest man: inasmuch as it sets 
gossip going, and does me great damage not to go 


1 Lettere, No. cccxci. There is, however, a letter (No. cccxe.) which 
Milanesi dates August 8, 1524. In it Michelangelo writes to Spina for 
money for the library, and signs “at S. Lorenzo.” 


380 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


back there.” From a ficordo dated October 109, 
1524, we learn in fact that he then drew his full 
pay for eight months.’ 


IV. 


Since Michelangelo was now engaged upon the 
Medicean tombs at 8. Lorenzo, it will be well to give 
some account of the several plans he made before 
deciding on the final scheme, which he partially 
executed. We may assume, I think, that the sac- 
risty, as regards its general form and dimensions, 
faithfully represents the first plan approved by 
Clement. ‘This follows from the rapidity and regu- 
larity with which the structure was completed. 
But then came the question of filling it with sarco- 
phagi and statues. As early as November 28, 1520, 
Giulio de’ Medici, at that time Cardinal, wrote from 
the Villa Magliana to Buonarroti, addressing him 
thus: ‘“Spectabilis vir, amice noster charissime.” * 
He says that he is pleased with the design for the 
chapel, and with the notion of placing the four 
tombs in the middle. Then he proceeds to make 
some sensible remarks upon the difficulty of getting 
these huge masses of statuary into the space pro- 
vided for them. Michelangelo, as Heath Wilson 
has pointed out, very slowly acquired the sense of 

1 Lettere, p. 596. See too p. 440. 2 Gotti, i. 150. 





No. 1 


TURAL DRAWING, 


EC 


ARCHIT 





EARLY PLANS FOR THE SACRISTY. 381 


proportion on which technical architecture depends. 
His early sketches only show a feeling for mass 
and picturesque effect, and a strong inclination to 
subordinate the building to sculpture. 

It may be questioned who were the four Medici 
for whom these tombs were intended. Cambi, in a 
passage quoted above, writing at the end of March 
1520 (?), says that two were raised for Giuliano, 
Duke of Nemours, and Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, 
and that the Cardinal meant one to be for himself. 
The fourth he does not speak about. It has been 
conjectured that Lorenzo the Magnificent and his 
brother Giuliano, fathers respectively of Leo and of 
Clement, were to occupy two of the sarcophagi; and 
also, with greater probability, that the two Popes, 
Leo and Clement, were associated with the Dukes. 

Before 1524 the scheme expanded, and settled 
into a more definite shape. The sarcophagi were to 
support statue-portraits of the Dukes and Popes, 
with Lorenzo the Magnificent and his _ brother 
Giuliano. At their base, upon the ground, were 
to repose six rivers, two for each tomb, showing that 
each sepulchre would have held two figures. The 
rivers were perhaps Arno, Tiber, Metauro, Po, Taro, 
and Ticino. ‘This we gather from a letter written 
to Michelangelo on the 23rd of May in that year.’ 
Michelangelo made designs to meet this plan, but 
whether the tombs were still detached from the wall 
does not appear. Standing inside the sacristy, it 

1 Gotti, i. 158. 


382 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO, 


seems impossible that six statue-portraits and six 
river gods on anything like a grand scale could 
have been crowded into the space, especially when 
we remember that there was to be an altar, with 
other objects described as ornaments—“ gli altri 
ornamenti.” Probably the Madonna and Child, 
with SS. Cosimo and Damiano, now extant in the 
chapel, formed an integral part of the successive 
schemes. 

One thing is certain, that the notion of placing 
the tombs in the middle of the sacristy was soon 
abandoned. All the marble panelling, pilasters, 
niches, and so forth, which at present clothe the 
walls and dominate the architectural effect, are 
clearly planned for mural monuments. A rude 
sketch preserved in the Uffizi throws some light 
upon the intermediate stages of the scheme.’ It is 
incomplete, and was not finally adopted; but we 
see in it one of the four sides of the chapel, divided 
vertically above into three compartments, the middle 
being occupied by a Madonna, the two at the sides 
filled in with bas-reliefs. At the base, on sarcophagi 
or cassont, recline two nude male figures. The space 
between these and the upper compartments seems 
to have been reserved for allegorical figures, since 
a colossal naked boy, ludicrously out of scale with 
the architecture and the recumbent figures, has been 
hastily sketched in. In architectural proportion 
and sculpturesque conception this design is very 

1 Published in L’@uvre et la Vie, p. 269. 


DRAWINGS FOR THE SACRISTY. 383 


poor. It has the merit, however, of indicating a 
moment in the evolution of the project when the 
mural scheme had been adopted. The decorative 
details which surmount the composition confirm the 
feeling every one must have, that, in their present 
state, the architecture of the Medicean monuments 
remains imperfect. 

In this process of endeavouring to trace the 
development of Michelangelo's ideas for the sacristy, 
seven original drawings at the British Museum are 
of the greatest importance.’ They may be divided 
into three groups. One sketch seems to belong to 
the period when the tombs were meant to be placed 
in the centre of the chapel. It shows a single facet 
of the monument, with two sarcophagi placed side 
by side and seated figures at the angles. Five are 
variations upon the mural scheme, which was even- 
tually adopted. They differ considerably in details, 
proving what trouble the designer took to combine 
a large number of figures in a single plan. He 
clearly intended at some time to range the Medicean 
statues in pairs, and studied several types of curve 
for their sepulchral urns. The feature common to 
all of them is a niche, of door or window shape, 
with a powerfully indented architrave. Reminis- 
cences of the design for the tomb of Julius are not 
infrequent ; and it may be remarked, as throwing a 


1 Four are in chalk, two in pen and ink, The seventh, which shows 
a different conception, but may be assigned with probability to the 
eaine series, is in chalk, worked over with the pen. 


384 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


side-light upon that irrecoverable project of his earlier 
manhood, that the figures posed upon the various 
spaces of architecture differ in their scale. Two 
belonging to this series are of especial interest, since 
we learn from them how he thought of introducing 
the rivers at the basement of the composition. It 
seems that he hesitated long about the employment 
of circular spaces in the framework of the marble 
panelling. These were finally rejected. One of the 
finest and most comprehensive of the drawings I am 
now describing contains a rough draft of a curved sar- 
cophagus, with an allegorical figure reclining upon 
it, indicating the first conception of the Dawn. 
Another, blurred and indistinct, with clumsy archi- 
tectural environment, exhibits two of these allegories, 
arranged much as we now see them at S. Lorenzo. 
A river-god, recumbent beneath the feet of a female 
statue, carries the eye down to the ground, and 
enables us to comprehend how these subordinate 
figures were wrought into the complex harmony of 
flowing lines he had imagined. ‘The seventh study 
differs in conception from the rest; it stands alone. 
There are four handlings of what begins like a huge 
portal, and is gradually elaborated into an archi- 
tectural scheme containing three great niches for 
statuary. It is powerful and simple in design, 
governed by semicircular arches—a feature which 
is absent from the rest. 

All these drawings are indubitably by the hand 
of Michelangelo, and must be reckoned among his 





0. 2 


=. 
i 


ARCHITECTURAL DRAWING, 





ARCHITECTURAL DRaAwina, No. 3. 





PROGRESS OF THE SACRISTY 385 


first free efforts to construct a working plan. The 
Albertina Collection at Vienna yields us an elaborate 
design for the sacristy, which appears to have been 
worked up from some of the rougher sketches. It 
is executed in pen, shaded with bistre, and belongs 
to what I have ventured to describe as office work.’ 
It may have been prepared for the inspection of Leo 
and the Cardinal. Here we have the sarcophagi in 
pairs, recumbent figures stretched upon a shallow 
curve inverted, colossal orders of a bastard Ionic 
type, a great central niche framing a seated Madonna, 
two male figures in side niches, suggestive of Giuli- 
ano and Lorenzo as they were at last conceived, four 
allegorical statues, and, to crown the whole structure, 
candelabra of a peculiar shape, with a central round, 
supported by two naked genii. It is difficult, as I 
have before observed, to be sure how much of the 
drawings executed in this way can be ascribed with 
safety to Michelangelo himself. They are carefully 
outlined, with the precision of a working architect ; 
but the sculptural details bear the aspect of what 
may be termed a generic Florentine style of draughts- 
manship. 

Two important letters from Michelangelo to Fat- 
tucci, written in October 1525 and April 1526, show 
that he had then abandoned the original scheme, 
and adopted one which was all but carried into 
effect.2. ‘I am working as hard as I can, and in 
fifteen days I shall begin the other captain. After- 

1 See above, Chapter VI. Section 11. 2 Lettere, Nos, cd. and cdii. 


VOL. I. 2B 


386 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


wards the only important things left will be the four 
rivers. ‘The four statues on the sarcophagi, the four 
figures on the ground which are the rivers, the two 
captains, and Our Lady, who is to be placed upon 
the tomb at the head of the chapel; these are what 
I mean to do with my own hand. Of these I have 
begun six; and I have good hope of finishing them 
in due time, and carrying the others forward in part, 
which do not signify so much.” The six he had 
begun are clearly the Dukes and their attendant 
figures of Day, Night, Dawn, Evening. The Ma- 
donna, one of his noblest works, came within a 
short distance of completion. SS. Cosimo and 
Damiano passed into the hands of Montelupo and 
Montorsoli. Of the four rivers we have only frag- 
ments in the shape of some exquisite little models. 
Where they could have been conveniently placed is 
difficult to imagine; possibly they were abandoned 
from a feeling that the chapel would be overcrowded. 


V. 


According to the plan adopted in this book, I 
shall postpone such observations as I have to make 
upon the Medicean monuments until the date when 
Michelangelo laid down his chisel, and shall now 
proceed with the events of his life during the years 
1525 and 1526. 


LAWSUIT WITH DUKE OF URBINO. 387 


He continued to be greatly troubled about the 
tomb of Julius II. The lawsuit instituted by the 
Duke of Urbino hung over his head; and though 
he felt sure of the Pope’s powerful support, it was 
extremely important, both for his character and com- 
fort, that affairs should be placed upon a satisfactory 
basis. Fattucci in Rome acted not only as Clement’s 
agent in business connected with S. Lorenzo; he 
also was intrusted with negotiations for the settle- 
ment of the Duke’s claims. The correspondence 
which passed between them forms, therefore, our 
best source of information for this period. On 
Christmas Eve in 1524 Michelangelo writes from 
Florence to his friend, begging him not to postpone 
a journey he had in view, if the only business which 
detained him was the trouble about the tomb... A 
pleasant air of manly affection breathes through this 
document, showing Michelangelo to have been un- 
selfish in a matter which weighed heavily and daily 
on his spirits. How greatly he was affected can be 
inferred from a letter written to Giovanni Spina on 
the 19th of April 1525. While reading this, it must 
be remembered that the Duke laid his action for the 
recovery of a considerable balance, which he alleged 
to be due to him upon disbursements made for the 
monument. Michelangelo, on the contrary, asserted 
that he was out of pocket, as we gather from the 
lengthy report he forwarded in 1524 to Fattucci.? 


1 Lettere, No. cccxciii. 
? Lettere, No, ccclxxxiii, See Appendix, 


388 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


The difficulty in the accounts seems to have arisen 
from the fact that payments for the Sistine Chapel 
and the tomb had been mixed up. The letter to Spina 
runs as follows:* ‘‘ There is no reason for sending a 
power of attorney about the tomb of Pope Julius, 
because I do not want to plead. They cannot bring 
a suit if I admit that [am in the wrong; so I assume 
that I have sued and lost, and have to pay; and this 
I am disposed to do, if Iam able. Therefore, if the 
Pope will help me in the matter—and this would be 
the greatest satisfaction to me, seeing I am too old 
and ill to finish the work—he might, as intermediary, 
express his pleasure that I should repay what I have 
received for its performance, so as to release me from 
this burden, and to enable the relatives of Pope Julius 
to carry out the undertaking by any master whom they 
may choose to employ. In this way his Holiness could 
be of very great assistance to me. Of course I desire 
to reimburse as little as possible, always consistently 
with justice. His Holiness might employ some of 
my arguments, as, for instance, the time spent for 
the Pope at Bologna, and other times wasted with- 
out any compensation, according to the statements I 
have made in full to Ser Giovan Francesco (Fattucci). 
Directly the terms of restitution have been settled, 
I will engage my property, sell, and put myself in a 
position to repay the money. I shall then be able to 
think of the Pope’s orders and to work; as it is, I 
can hardly be said to live, far less to work. ‘There 


1 Lettere, No. cecxciv. 


CLEMENT NEGOTIATES. 385 


is no other way of putting an end to the affair more 
safe for myself, nor more agreeable, nor more certain 
to ease my mind. It can be done amicably without 
a lawsuit. I pray to God that the Pope may be 
willing to accept the mediation, for I cannot see that 
any one else is fit to do it.” 

Giorgio Vasari says that he came in the year 
1525 for a short time as pupil to Michelangelo.’ 
In his own biography he gives the date, more cor- 
rectly, 1524. At any rate, the period of Vasari’s 
brief apprenticeship was closed by a journey which 
the master made to Rome, and Buonarroti placed 
the lad in Andrea del Sarto’s workshop. ‘He left 
for Rome in haste. Francesco Maria, Duke of Ur- 
bino, was again molesting him, asserting that he 
had received 16,000 ducats to complete the tomb, 
while he stayed idling at Florence for his own amuse- 
ment. He threatened that, if he did not attend to 
the work, he would make him suffer. So, when he 
arrived there, Pope Clement, who wanted to com- 
mand his services, advised him to reckon with the 
Duke’s agents, believing that, for what he had already 
done, he was rather creditor than debtor. The matter 
remained thus.” We do not know when this journey 
to Rome took place. From a hint in the letter of 
December 24, 1524, to Fattucci, where Michelangelo 
observes that only he in person would be able to 
arrange matters, it is possible that we may refer it 
to the beginning of 1525. Probably he was able 


1 Vasari, xii. p. 204. See note 2. 


390 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


to convince, not only the Pope, but also the Duke’s 
agents that he had acted with scrupulous honesty, 
and that his neglect of the tomb was due to circum- 
stances over which he had no control, and which he 
regretted as acutely as anybody. There is no shadow 
of doubt that this was really the case. Every word 
written by Michelangelo upon the subject shows 
that he was heart-broken at having to abandon the 
long-cherished project. 

Some sort of arrangement must have been arrived 
at. Clement took the matter into his own hands, 
and during the summer of 1525 amicable negotia- 
tions were in progress. On the 4th of September 
Michelangelo writes again to Fattucci, saying that he 
is quite willing to complete the tomb upon the same 
plan as that of the Pope Pius (now in the Church 
of S. Andrea della Valle)—that is, to adopt a mural 
system instead of the vast detached monument! 
This would take less time. He again urges his 
friend not to stay at Rome for the sake of these 
affairs. He hears that the plague is breaking out 
there. ‘“ And I would rather have you alive than 
my business settled. If I die before the Pope, I 
shall not have to settle any troublesome affairs. If 
I live, I am sure the Pope will settle them, if not 
now, at some other time. So come back. I was 
with your mother yesterday, and advised her, in the 
presence of Granacci and John the turner, to send 
for you home.” 


1 Lettere, No. ccexeviii. 


WORK ON THE MEDICEAN TOMBS. 391 


While in Rome Michelangelo conferred with 
Clement about the sacristy and library at 8. Lorenzo. 
For a year after his return to Florence he worked 
steadily at the Medicean monuments, but not with- 
out severe annoyances, as appears from the follow- 
ing to Fattucci:' “The four statues I have in 
hand are not yet finished, and much has still to 
be done upon them. The four rivers are not begun, 
because the marble is wanting, and yet it is here. 
I do not think it opportune to tell you why. With 
regard to the affairs of Julius, I am well disposed to 
make the tomb like that of Pius in S. Peter’s, and 
will do so little by little, now one piece and now 
another, and will pay for it out of my own pocket, 
if I keep my pension and my house, as you promised 
me. I mean, of course, the house at Rome, and the 
marbles and other things I have there.” So that, | 
in fine, I should not have to restore to the heirs of 
Julius, in order to be quit of the contract, anything 
which I have hitherto received; the tomb itself, 
completed after the pattern of that of Pius, sufficing 
for my full discharge. Moreover, I undertake to 
perform the work within a reasonable time, and to 
finish the statues with my own hand.” He then 
turns to his present troubles at Florence. The 
pension was in arrears, and busybodies annoyed 
him with interferences of all sorts. ‘If my pension 
were paid, as was arranged, I would never stop 


1 Lettere, No. cd., date October 24, 1525. 
2 Near the Forum of Trajan. See above. 


392 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


working for Pope Clement with all the strength I 
have, small though that be, since Iam old. At the 
same time I must not be slighted and affronted as 
I am now, for such treatment weighs greatly on my 
spirits. The petty spites I speak of have prevented me 
from doing what I want to do these many months; 
one cannot work at one thing with the hands, an- 
other with the brain, especially in marble. ’Tis 
said here that these annoyances are meant to spur 
me on; but I maintain that those are scurvy spurs 
which make a good steed jib. I have not touched 
my pension during the past year, and struggle with 
poverty. I am left in solitude to bear my troubles, 
and have so many that they occupy me more than 
does my art; I cannot keep a man to manage my 
house through lack of means.” 

Michelangelo’s dejection caused serious anxiety 
to his friends. Jacopo Salviati, writing on the 30th 
October from Rome, endeavoured to restore his 
courage." “I am greatly distressed to hear of 
the fancies you have got into your head. What 
hurts me most is that they should prevent your 
working, for that rejoices your ill-wishers, and 
confirms them in what they have always gone on 
preaching about your habits.” He proceeds to tell 
him how absurd it is to suppose that Baccio Ban- 
dinelli is preferred before him. “I cannot perceive 
how Baccio could in any way whatever be compared 
to you, or his work be set on the same level as your 

1 Gotti, i, 173. 


DISCOURAGEMENT AND LETHARGY. 393 


own.” The letter winds up with exhortations to 
work. ‘‘ Brush these cobwebs of melancholy away ; 
have confidence in his Holiness ; do not give occasion 
to your enemies to blaspheme, and be sure that your 
pension will be paid; I pledge my word for it.” 
Buonarroti, it is clear, wasted his time, not through 
indolence, but through allowing the gloom of a 
suspicious and downcast temperament—what the 
Italians call accidia—to settle on his spirits. 
Skipping a year, we find that these troublesome 
negotiations about the tomb were still pending. He 
still hung suspended between the devil and the deep 
sea, the importunate Duke of Urbino and the vacil- 
lating Pope. Spina, it seems, had been writing with 
too much heat to Rome, probably urging Clement to 
bring the difficulties about the tomb to a conclusion. 
Michelangelo takes the correspondence up again 
with Fattucci on November 6, 1526.) What he 
says at the beginning of the letter is significant. 
He knows that the political difficulties in which 
Clement had become involved were sufficient to dis- 
tract his mind, as Julius once said, from any interest 
in “stones small or big.” Well, the letter starts 
thus: “I know that Spina wrote in these days past 
to Rome very hotly about my affairs with regard to 
the tomb of Julius. If he blundered, seeing the 
times in which we live, I am to blame, for I prayed 
him urgently to write. It is possible that the trouble 
of my soul made me say more than I ought. Infor- 


1 Lettere, No. ediii. 


394 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


mation reached me lately about that affair which 
alarmed me greatly. It seems that the relatives of 
Julius are very ill-disposed towards me. And not 
without reason.'—The suit is going on, and they are 
demanding capital and interest to such an amount 
that a hundred of my sort could not meet the claims. 
This has thrown me into terrible agitation, and 
makes me reflect where I should be if the Pope 
failed me. I could not live a moment. It is that 
which made me send the letter alluded to above. 
Now, I do not want anything but what the Pope 
thinks right. I know that he does not desire my 
ruin and my disgrace.” 

He proceeds to notice that the building work at 
S. Lorenzo is being carried forward very slowly, and 
money spent upon it with increasing parsimony. 
Still he has his pension and his house; and these 
imply no small disbursements. He cannot make out 
what the Pope’s real wishes are. If he did but know 
Clement's mind, he would sacrifice everything to 
please him. ‘‘ Only if I could obtain permission to 
begin something, either here or in Rome, for the 
tomb of Julius, I should be extremely glad; for, 
indeed, I desire to free myself from that obligation 
more than to live.” The letter closes on a note of 
sadness: “If I am unable to write what you will 
understand, do not be surprised, for I have lost my 
wits entirely.” 


' I think he means that his fright is not unreasonable, Or the “not 
without reason” may be ironical, 


POLITICAL EVENTS. 395 


After this we hear nothing more about the tomb 
in Michelangelo’s correspondence till the year 1531. 
During the intervening years Italy was convulsed 
by the sack of Rome, the siege of Florence, and 
the French campaigns in Lombardy and Naples. 
Matters only began to mend when Charles V. met 
Clement at Bologna in 1530, and established the 
affairs of the peninsula upon a basis which proved 
durable. That fatal lustre (1526-1530) divided the 
Italy of the Renaissance from the Italy of modern 
times with the abruptness of an Alpine watershed. 
Yet Michelangelo, aged fifty-one in 1526, was des- 
tined to live on another thirty-eight years, and, after 
the death of Clement, to witness the election of five 
successive Popes. The span of his life was not 
only extraordinary in its length, but also in the 
events it comprehended. Born in the medieval 
pontificate of Sixtus IV., brought up in the golden 
days of Lorenzo de’ Medici, he survived the Franco- 
Spanish struggle for supremacy, watched the pro- 
gress of the Reformation, and only died when a 
new Church and a new Papacy had been established 
by the Tridentine Council amid states sinking into 
the repose of decrepitude. 


396 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


VI. 


We must return from this digression, and resume 
the events of Michelangelo’s life in 1525. 

The first letter to Sebastiano del Piombo is re- 
ferred to April of that year. He says that a pic- 
ture, probably the portrait of Anton Francesco degli 
Albizzi, is eagerly expected at Florence. When it 
arrived in May, he wrote again under the influence 
of generous admiration for his friend’s performance :? 
“Last evening our friend the Captain Cuio and 
certain other gentlemen were so kind as to invite 
me to sup with them. This gave me exceeding 
ereat pleasure, since it drew me forth a little from 
my melancholy, or shall we call it my mad mood. 
Not only did I enjoy the supper, which was most 
agreeable, but far more the conversation. Among 
the topics discussed, what gave me most delight was 
to hear your name mentioned by the Captain; nor 
was this all, for he still added to my pleasure, nay, 
to a superlative degree, by saying that, in the art of 
painting he held you to be sole and without peer in 
the whole world, and that so you were esteemed at 
Rome. I could not have been better pleased. You 
see that my Judgment is confirmed; and so you must 
not deny that you are peerless, when I write it, since I 
have a crowd of witnesses to my opinion. There is 


1 Lettere, No, cccxcvi. 
* Lettere, No. eccxcvii. Cuio Dini died in the sack of Rome. 


LIBRARY OF S. LORENZO. 397 


a picture too of yours here, God be praised, which 
wins credence for me with every one who has eyes.” 

Correspondence was carried on during this year 
regarding the library at S. Lorenzo; and though I 
do not mean to treat at length about that building 
in this chapter, I cannot omit an autograph post- 
script added by Clement to one of his secretary's 
missives:* ‘ Thou knowest that Popes have no long 
lives ; and we cannot yearn more than we do to behold 
the chapel with the tombs of our kinsmen, or at 
any rate to hear that it is finished. Likewise, as 
regards the library. Wherefore we recommend both 
to thy diligence. Meantime we will betake us (as 
thou saidst erewhile) to a wholesome patience, 
praying God that He may put it into thy heart to 
push the whole forward together. Fear not that 
either work to do or rewards shall fail thee while 
we live. Farewell, with the blessing of God and 
ours.—JULIUS.” 

Michelangelo began the library in 1526, as appears 
from his Ricord:. Still the work went on slowly, 
not through his negligence, but, as we have seen, 
from the Pope’s preoccupation with graver matters. 
He had a great many workmen in his service at 
this period,? and employed celebrated masters in 
their crafts, as Tasso and Carota for wood-carving, 
Battista del Cinque and Ciapino for carpentry, upon 
the various fittings of the library. All these details 


1 Gotti, i. 166. The Pope signs with his baptismal name. 
2 See a list of stone-hewers in Ricordo, August 31, 1524, p. 584. 


398 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


he is said to have designed ; and it is certain that he 
was considered responsible for their solidity and hand- 
some appearance. Sebastiano, for instance, wrote 
to him about the benches:* ‘Our Lord wishes that 
the whole work should be of carved walnut. He 
does not mind spending three florins more ; for that 
is a trifle, if they are Cosimesque in style, I mean 
resemble the work done for the magnificent Cosimo.” 
Michelangelo could not have been the solitary worker 
of legend and tradition. The nature of his present 
occupations rendered this impossible. For the com- 
pletion of his architectural works he needed a band 
of able coadjutors. Thus in 1526 Giovanni da 
Udine came from Rome to decorate the vault of the 
sacristy with frescoed arabesques.? His work was 


1 Les Correspondants, p. 104. 

2 This painter was one of Raffaello’s pupils who enjoyed Michel- 
angelo’s intimacy. There isa letter addressed by Giovanni to him as early 
as the year 1522, “ L’otava di Pasqua di Risurecione,” Arch, Buon., Cod. 
ix, No. 729. The supposition that he came to Florence in 1526 is founded 
on a letter by Fattucci in that year (Gotti, i. 170); but I believe, from 
one of his own letters which I shall proceed to quote, that he did 
not begin to paint until 1531. We find him writing on the 25th of 
December 1531 to Michelangelo (ibid., No. 730) saying that the Pope 
wants him to execute the stuccht of his “Cappella hover Tribuna.” 
He adds, what is interesting, that all his workpeople have perished in 
the sack of Rome, and that he is obliged to educate a new set: “in 
queste frangenti di Roma, e bisogna farne de novi.” Then he begs 
Buonarroti to send him particulars regarding the shape and dimensions 
of the chapel, which shows that when Clement thought of sending him 
in 1526, he had been prevented by the troubles of the times. He 
worked entirely under Michelangelo’s orders, and designed the beauti- 
ful windows for the library. An inedited letter from Giovan Francesco 
Bini in Rome to Michelangelo in Florence, dated August 3, 1533 
(Arch. Buon., Cod. vi. No. 92), indicates that he was still at work. Bini 


FRESH WORK AT S. LORENZO. 399 


nearly terminated in 1533, when some question 
arose about painting the inside of the lantern. 
Sebastiano, apparently in good faith, made the 
following burlesque suggestion:’ ‘‘For myself, I 
think that the Ganymede would go there very well ; 
one could put an aureole about him, and turn him 
into a S. John of the Apocalypse when he is being 
caught up into the heavens.” ‘The whole of one 
side of the Italian Renaissance, its so-called neo- 
paganism, is contained in this remark. 

While still occupied with thoughts about S. 
Lorenzo, Clement ordered Michelangelo to make a 
receptacle for the precious vessels and reliques 
collected by Lorenzo the Magnificent. It was first 
intended to place this chest, in the form of a 
ciborium, above the high altar, and to sustain it on 
four columns. Eventually, the Pope resolved that 
it should be a sacrarium, or cabinet for holy things, 
and that this should stand above the middle entrance 
door to the church. ‘The chest was finished, and 
its contents remained there until the reign of the 
Grand-Duke Pietro Leopoldo, when they were re- 
moved to the chapel next the old sacristy. 

Another very singular idea occurred to his Holiness 
in the autumn of 1525. He made Fattucci write 


says the Pope is willing to give Giovanni leave of absence, but that he 
must return: “che M. Giov. da Udine vadia ove desidera sua Sta 
& contenta ma che torni,” &c. Michelangelo left Florence himself in 
the autumn of that year. 

1 Les Correspondants, p. 104. Sebastiano probably alludes to some 
design for a Ganymede made by Michelangelo. 


400 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


that he wished to erect a colossal statue on the 
piazza of §. Lorenzo, opposite the Stufa Palace. The 
giant was to surmount the roof of the Medicean 
Palace, with its face turned in that direction and 
its back to the house of Luigi della Stufa. Being 
so huge, it would have to be composed of sepa- 
rate pieces fitted together. Michelangelo speedily 
knocked this absurd plan on the head in a letter 
which gives a good conception of his dry and some- 
what ponderous humour.’ 

‘‘ About the Colossus of forty cubits, which you tell 
me is to go or to be placed at the corner of the 
loggia in the Medicean garden, opposite the corner 
of Messer Luigi della Stufa, I have meditated not a 
little, as you bade me. In my opinion that is not 
the proper place for it, since it would take up too 
much room on the roadway. I should prefer to put 
it at the other, where the barber's shop is. This 
would be far better in my judgment, since it has the 
square in front, and would not encumber the street. 
There might be some difficulty about pulling down 
the shop, because of the rent. So it has occurred 
to me that the statue might be carved in a sitting 
position ; the Colossus would be so lofty that if we 
made it hollow inside, as indeed is the proper 
method for a thing which has to be put together 
from pieces, the shop might be enclosed within it, 
and the rent be saved. And inasmuch as the shop has 
a chimney in its present state, I thought of placing 


1 Gotti, 1. 168, 3 Lettere, No. cecxcix. 


PROJECT FOR A COLOSSUS. 401 


a cornucopia in the statue’s hand, hollowed out for 
the smoke to pass through. The head too would 
be hollow, like all the other members of the figure. 
This might be turned to a useful purpose, according 
to the suggestion made me by a huckster on the 
square, who is my good friend. He privily confided 
to me that it would make an excellent dovecote. 
Then another fancy came into my head, which is 
still better, though the statue would have to be 
considerably heightened. That, however, is quite 
feasible, since towers are built up of blocks; and 
then the head might serve as bell-tower to San 
Lorenzo, which is much in need of one. Setting up 
the bells inside, and the sound booming through the 
‘mouth, it would seem as though the Colossus were 
crying mercy, and mostly upon feast-days, when 
peals are rung most often and with bigger bells.” 
Nothing more is heard of this fantastic project; 
whence we may conclude that the irony of Michel- 
angelo’s epistle drove it out of the Pope’s head. 


VOL. 1. 20 


CHAPTER IX. 


1. Michelangelo was at Florence during the sack of Rome.—Meagre 
documents relating to 1528.—Death of Buonarroto.—Cellini and 
Michelangelo.—Valerio Bellii—z. Florence expects a siege and 
prepares to arm.—Michelangelo elected a member of the Nove 
della Milizia in April 1529.—He begins to fortify 8. Miniato,— 
Inspects the fortress of Pisa.—Difficulties with the Gonfalonier 
Capponi.—Sent to Ferrara in July.—3. He was certainly in 
Florence after the middle of September.—Sudden flight to Venice 
at the end of this month.— Letter to Giovanni Battista della 
Palla.—Various notices regarding the reason of this flight.—Ques- 
tion whether he had already been in Venice during the summer 
of this year.—The Rtcordo, September 10.—4. Residence on the 
Giudecca in Venice.—A sentence of outlawry issued against him 
at Florence.—The Signory grant him a safe-conduct home, if he 
will return.—Palla’s letters.—Michelangelo in Florence again at 
the end of November 1529.—Progress of the siege.—Malatesta 
Baglioni betrays the city.—Capitulation, August 1530.—5. Baccio 
Valori and the return of the Medici.—Persecution of the Floren- 
tine patriots.—Michelangelo goes into hiding, but is pardoned by 
Clement, and set to work again at 8. Lorenzo.—The Cacus and 
Hercules.—The tempera picture of a Leda, and its history.— 
Michelangelo’s attitude toward subjects for art-work.—The Apollo 
begun for Baccio Valori.i—6. Lodovico at Pisa during the siege.— 
Young Lionardo Buonarroti.—Michelangelo works steadily at the 
Medicean monuments.—Invitations to Rome.—Negotiations about 
the tomb of Julius.—Michelangelo’s health suffers from overwork 
and worry.—Clement issues a brief enjoining him to spare his 
strength.—Sebastiano’s efforts with the Pope and Duke of Urbino 
end in a new contract for the tomb, April 29, 1532.—Further 
troubles connected with this contract.—Condivi’s general history 
of the affair.—7. Michelangelo in disfavour with Duke Alessandro 
de’ Medici.—His attitude toward the reigning family.—Clemeunt, 


on his way to France, meets him at S. Miniato al Tedesca,— 
402 


THE SACK OF ROME. 403 


Lodovico Buonarroti dies about this time.—Michelangelo leaves 
Florence in the late autumn of 1534.—His poem on Lodovico’s 
death, 


I. 


Ir lies outside the scope of this work to describe 
the series of events which led up to the sack of 
Rome in 1527. Clement, by his tortuous policy, 
and by the avarice of his administration, had alien- 
ated every friend and exasperated all his foes. The 
Eternal City was in a state of chronic discontent 
and anarchy. The Colonna princes drove the Pope 
to take refuge in the Castle of S. Angelo; and when 
the Lutheran rabble raised by Frundsberg poured 
into Lombardy, the Duke of Ferrara assisted them 
to cross the Po, and the Duke of Urbino made no 
effort to bar the passes of the Apennines. Losing 
one leader after the other, these ruffians, calling 
themselves an Imperial army, but being in reality 
the scum and offscourings of all nations, without 
any aim but plunder and ignorant of policy, reached 
Rome upon the 6th of May. They took the city by 
assault, and for nine months Clement, leaning from 
the battlements of Hadrian’s Mausoleum, watched 
smoke ascend from desolated palaces and desecrated 
temples, heard the wailing of women and the groans 
of tortured men, mingling with the ribald jests 
of German drunkards and the curses of Castilian 
bandits. Roaming those galleries and gazing from 
those windows, he is said to have exclaimed in the 


404 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


words of Job: ‘“‘ Why died I not from the womb? 
why did I not give up the ghost when I came out 
of the belly?” 

The immediate effect of this disaster was that 
the Medici lost their hold on Florence. The Car- 
dinal of Cortona, with the young princes Ippolito 
and Alessandro de’ Medici, fled from the city on the 
17th of May, and a popular government was set up 
under the presidency of Niccold Capponi. 

During this year and the next, Michelangelo was 
at Florence; but we know very little respecting 
the incidents of his life. A zcordo bearing the 
date April 29 shows the disturbed state of the 
town.’ “I record how, some days ago, Piero di 
Filippo Gondi asked for permission to enter the 
new sacristy at S. Lorenzo, in order to hide there 
certain goods belonging to his family, by reason of 
the perils in which we are now. ‘To-day, upon the 
29th of April 1527, he has begun to carry in some 
bundles, which he says are linen of his sisters; and 
I, not wishing to witness what he does or to know 
where he hides the gear away, have given him the 
key of the sacristy this evening.” 

There are only two letters belonging to the year 
1527. Both refer to a small office which had been 
awarded to Michelangelo with the right to dispose 
of the patronage. He offered it to his favourite 
brother, Buonarroto, who does not seem to have 
thought it worth accepting.’ 


‘ Lettere, p. 598. 2 Lettere, Nos, cxxii., cxxili., August. 


DEATH OF BUONARROTO. 405 


The documents for 1528 are almost as meagre. 
We do not possess a single letter, and the most 
important Fecordi relate to Buonarroto’s death and 
the administration of his property. He died of the 
plague upon the 2nd of July, to the very sincere 
sorrow of his brother. It is said that Michelangelo 
held him in his arms while he was dying, with- 
out counting the risk to his own life! Among the 
minutes of disbursements made for Buonarroto’s 
widow and children after his burial, we find that 
their clothes had been destroyed because of the 
infection. All the cares of the family now fell on 
Michelangelo’s shoulders. He placed his niece 
Francesca in a convent till the time that she should 
marry, repaid her dowry to the widow Bartolom- 
mea, and provided for the expenses of his nephew 
Lionardo.’ 

For the rest, there is little to relate which has 
any bearing on the way in which he passed his time 
before the siege of Florence began. One glimpse, 
however, is afforded of his daily life and conver- 
sation by Benvenuto Cellini, who had settled in 
Florence after the sack of Rome, and was working 
in a shop he opened at the Mercato Nuovo.’ The 
episode is sufficiently interesting to be quoted. A 
Sienese gentleman had commissioned Cellini to 
make him a golden medal, to be worn in the hat. 


1 The Senator Filippo Buonarroti, quoted by Gotti, i. 207. 
? Ricordi for 1528, in Lettere, pp. 599-601. 
3 Memorie, lib. i. cap. 41. 


406 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


“The subject was to be Hercules wrenching the 
lion’s mouth. While I was working at this piece, 
Michel Agnolo Buonarroti came oftentimes to see 
it. I had spent infinite pains upon the design, so 
that the attitude of the figure and the fierce pas- 
sion of the beast were executed in quite a different 
style from that of any craftsman who had hitherto 
attempted such groups. This, together with the fact 
that the special branch of art was totally unknown 
to Michel Agnolo, made the divine master give such 
praises to my work that I felt incredibly inspired 
for further effort. 

“Just then I met with Federigo Ginori, a young 
man of very lofty spirit. He had lived some years 
in Naples, and being endowed with great charms 
of person and presence, had been the lover of a 
Neapolitan princess. He wanted to have a medal 
made with Atlas bearing the world upon his 
shoulders, and applied to Michel Agnolo for a 
design. Michel Agnolo made this answer: ‘Go 
and find out a young goldsmith named Benvenuto ; 
he will serve you admirably, and certainly he does 
not stand in need of sketches by me. However, to 
prevent your thinking that I want to save myself 
the trouble of so slight a matter, I will gladly 
sketch you something; but meanwhile speak to 
Benvenuto, and let him also make a model; he 
can then execute the better of the two designs.’ 
Federigo Ginori came to me and told me what he 
wanted, adding thereto how Michel Agnolo had 


COURTESY TO CELLINI. 407 


praised me, and how he had suggested I should 
make a waxen model while he undertook to supply 
a sketch. The words of that great man so heartened 
me, that I set myself to work at once with eager- 
ness upon the model; and when I had finished it, 
a painter who was intimate with Michel Agnolo, 
called Giuliano Bugiardini, brought me the drawing 
of Atlas. On the same occasion I showed Giuliano 
my little model in wax, which was very different 
from Michel Agnolo’s drawing; and Federigo, in 
concert with Bugiardini, agreed that I should work 
upon my model. So I took it in hand, and when 
Michel Agnolo saw it, he praised me to the skies.” 

The courtesy shown by Michelangelo on this occa- 
sion to Cellini may be illustrated by an inedited 
letter addressed to him from Vicenza.’ The writer 
was Valerio Belli, who describes himself as a cor- 
nelian-cutter. He reminds the sculptor of a promise 
once made to him in Florence of a design for an 
engraved gem. A remarkably fine stone has just 
come into his hands, and he should much like to 
begin to work upon it. These proofs of Buonarroti’s 
liberality to brother artists are not unimportant, 
since he was unjustly accused during his lifetime of 
stinginess and churlishness. 


* Date April 21,1521. “Valerio Belli che taglia le Corniole.” Arch, 
Buon., Cod. vi, No. 52. 


408 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


11s 


At the end of the year 1528 it became clear to 
the Florentines that they would have to reckon with 
Clement VII. As early as August 18, 1527, France 
and England leagued together, and brought pressure 
upon Charles V., in whose name Rome had been 
sacked. Negotiations were proceeding, which eventu- 
ally ended in the peace of Barcelona (June 20, 1529), 
whereby the Emperor engaged to sacrifice the Re- 
public to the Pope’s vengeance. It was expected 
that the remnant of the Prince of Orange’s army 
would be marched up to besiege the town. Under 
the anxiety caused by these events, the citizens raised 
a strong body of militia, enlisted Malatesta Baglioni 
and Stefano Colonna as generals, and began to take 
measures for strengthening the defences. What 
may be called the War Office of the Florentine Re- 
public bore the title of Dieci della Guerra, or the 
Ten. It was their duty to watch over and provide 
for all the interests of the commonwealth in military 
matters, and now at this juncture serious measures — 
had to be taken for putting the city in a state of 
defence. Already in the year 1527, after the expul- 
sion of the Medici, a subordinate board had been 
created, to whom very considerable executive and 
administrative faculties were delegated.’ ‘This board, 


1 The Republic, in fact, adopted Machiavelli’s scheme for a national] 
militia, as set forth in his treatise on the Art of War. 


FORTIFICATION OF FLORENCE. 409 


called the Nove della Milizia, or the Nine, were em- 
powered to enrol all the burghers under arms, and to 
take charge of the walls, towers, bastions, and other 
fortifications. It was also within their competence 
to cause the destruction of buildings, and to com- 
pensate the evicted proprietors at a valuation which 
they fixed themselves.’ In the spring of 1529 the 
War Office decided to gain the services of Michel- 
angelo, not only because he was the most eminent 
architect of his age in Florence, but also because 
the Buonarroti family had always been adherents 
of the Medicean party, and the Ten judged that 
his appointment to a place on the Nove di Milizia 
would be popular with the democracy.” The patent 
conferring this office upon him, together with full 
authority over the work of fortification, was issued 
on the 6th of April.’ Its terms were highly com- 
plimentary. ‘‘ Considering the genius and practical 
attainments of Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti, 
our citizen, and knowing how excellent he is in 
architecture, beside his other most singular talents 
in the liberal arts, by virtue whereof the common 
consent of men regards him as unsurpassed by any 
masters of our times; and, moreover, being assured 
that in love and affection toward the country he 
is the equal of any other good and loyal burgher ; 
bearing in mind, too, the labour he has undergone 


1 Varchi, Stor. Fior., vol. i. p. 184. 
2 See document, quoted by Milanesi, Vasari, xil. 365. 
8 The original is given in Gotti, vol. il. p. 62. 


410 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


and the diligence he has displayed, gratis and of 
his free will, in the said work (of fortification) up to 
this day; and wishing to employ his industry and 
energies to the like effect in future; we, of our 
motion and initiative, do appoint him to be governor 
and procurator-general over the construction and 
fortification of the city walls, as well as every other 
sort of defensive operation and munition for the 
town of Florence, for one year certain, beginning 
with the present date; adding thereto full autho- 
rity over all persons in respect to the said work 
of reparation or pertaining to it.” From this pre- 
amble it appears that Michelangelo had been already 
engaged in volunteer service connected with the de- 
fence of Florence. A stipend of one golden florin 
per diem was fixed by the same deed; and upon the 
22nd of April following a payment of thirty florins 
was decreed, for one month’s salary, dating from the 
6th of April.’ 

If the Government thought to gain popular sym- 
pathy by Michelangelo’s appointment, they made 
the mistake of alienating the aristocracy. It was 
the weakness of Florence, at this momentous crisis 
in her fate, to be divided into parties, political, 
religious, social; whose internal jealousies deprived 
her of the strength which comes alone from unity. 
When Giambattista Busini wrote that interesting 
series of letters to Benedetto Varchi from which the 
latter drew important materials for his annals of the 


1 Vasari, xii. 365. 


CONTROLLER-GENERAL OF THE DEFENCES. 411 


siege, he noted this fact. ‘Envy must always be 
reckoned as of some account in republics, especially 
when the nobles form a considerable element, as in 
ours: for they were angry, among other matters, to 
see a Carducci made Gonfalonier, Michelangelo a 
member of the Nine, a Cei or a Giugni elected to 
the Ten.” 

Michelangelo had scarcely been chosen to control 
the general scheme for fortifying Florence, when 
the Signory began to consider the advisability of 
strengthening the citadels of Pisa and Livorno, and 
erecting lines along the Arno.” Their commissary 
at Pisa wrote urging the necessity of Buonarroti’s 
presence on the spot. In addition to other pressing 
needs, the Arno, when in flood, threatened the 
ancient fortress of the city. Accordingly we find 
that Michelangelo went to Pisa on the 5th of June, 
and that he stayed there over the 13th, returning 
to Florence perhaps upon the 17th of the month.’ 
The commissary, who spent several days in con- 
ferring with him and in visiting the banks of the 
Arno, was perturbed in mind because Michelangelo 
refused to exchange the inn where he alighted for 
an apartment in the official residence. ‘This is very 
characteristic of the artist. We shall soon find 
him, at Ferrara, refusing to quit his hostelry for 
the Duke’s palace, and, at Venice, hiring a remote 


1 Lettere del Busini al Varchi. Firenze: Le Monnier, 1861, p. 133. 

2 Correspondence between the Signory and their commissary, C 
Tosinghi, at Pisa, between April 28 and May 6. Gaye, ii. 184-185. 

3 Documents in Gaye, ii. 194 ; Vasari, xii. 367. 


412 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


lodging on the Giudecca in order to avoid the hos- 
pitality of S. Mark. 

An important part of Michelangelo’s plan for the 
fortification of Florence was to erect bastions cover- 
ing the hill of S. Miniato. Any one who stands 
upon the ruined tower of the church there will see 
at a glance that S. Miniato is the key to the position 
for a beleaguering force; and “if the enemy once 
obtained possession of the hill, he would become 
immediately master of the town.”* It must, I think, 
have been at this spot that Buonarroti was work- 
ing before he received the appointment of controller- 
general of the works. Yet he found some difficulty 
in persuading the rulers of the state that his plan was 
the right one. Busini, using information supplied 
by Michelangelo himself at Rome in 1549, speaks 
as follows:” ‘‘ Whatever the reason may have been, 
Niccold Capponi, while he was Gonfalonier, would 
not allow the hill of S. Miniato to be fortified, and 
Michelangelo, who is a man of absolute veracity, 
tells me that he had great trouble in convincing the 
other members of the Government, but that he could 
never convince Niccold. However, he began the 
work, in the way you know, with those fascines of — 
tow. But Niccold made him abandon it, and sent 
him to another post; and when he was elected to 
the Nine, they despatched him twice or thrice out- 
side the city. Each time, on his return, he found 


1 Condivi, p. 47. Probably the words are Michelangelo’s. 
2 Busini, p. 103. 


STRENGTHENING OF S. MINIATO. 413 


the hill neglected, whereupon he complained, feel- 
ing this a blot upon his reputation and an insult 
to his magistracy. Eventually, the works went on, 
until, when the besieging army arrived, they were 
tenable.” 

Michelangelo had hitherto acquired no practical 
acquaintance with the art of fortification. That the 
system of defence by. bastions was an Italian in- 
vention (although Albert Diirer first reduced it to 
written theory in his book of 1527, suggesting im- 
provements which led up to Vauban’s method) is a 
fact acknowledged by military historians. But it does 
not appear that Michelangelo did more than carry out 
defensive operations in the manner familiar to his 
predecessors. Indeed, we shall see that some critics 
found reason to blame him for want of science in 
the construction of his outworks. When, therefore, 
a difference arose between the controller-general of 
defences and the Gonfalonier upon this question of 
strengthening 8. Miniato, it was natural that the 
War Office should have thought it prudent to send 
their chief officer to the greatest authority upon 
fortification then alive in Italy." This was the Duke 
of Ferrara. Busini must serve as our text in the 
first instance upon this point.” ‘‘ Michelangelo says 
that, when neither Niccold Capponi nor Baldas- 

1 That the Florentine Government was seriously anxious to get the 
Duke’s advice appears from a letter of Giugni to the Ten, August 9, 
1529, recommending them to send the Duke a ground-plan of the city 


and its environs for his opinion. See Gaye, il, 200. 
2 Busini, p. 115. 


414 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


sare Carducci would agree to the outworks at S. 
Miniato, he convinced all the leading men except 
Niccold of their necessity, showing that Florence 
could not hold out a single day without them. ~ 
Accordingly he began to throw up bastions with 
fascines of tow; but the result was far from per- 
fect, as he himself confessed. Upon this, the Ten 
resolved to send him to Ferrara to inspect that 
renowned work of defence. Thither accordingly he 
went; nevertheless, he believes that Niccold did 
this in order to get him out of the way, and to pre- 
vent the construction of the bastion. In proof 
thereof he adduces the fact that, upon his return, 
he found the whole work interrupted.” 

Furnished with letters to the Duke, and with 
special missives from the Signory and the Ten 
to their envoy, Galeotto Giugni, Michelangelo 
left Florence for Ferrara after the 28th of July, 
and reached it on the 2nd of August.’ He re- 
fused, as Giugni writes with some regret, to abandon 
his inn, but was personally conducted with great 
honour by the Duke all round the walls and 
fortresses of Ferrara. On what day he quitted that 
city, and whither he went immediately after his 
departure, is uncertain. The Ten wrote to Giugni 
on the 8th of August, saying that his presence was 
urgently required at Florence, since the work of 
fortification was going on apace, “a multitude of 
men being employed, and no respect being paid to 

1 Gaye, ii. 197-200. 


JOURNEY TO FERRARA. 415 


feast-days and holidays.” It would also seem that, 
toward the close of the month, he was expected at 
Arezzo, in order to survey and make suggestions on 
the defences of the city.’ 

These points are not insignificant, since we 
possess a Itucordo by Michelangelo, written upon 
an unfinished letter bearing the date ‘‘ Venice, Sep- 
tember 10,” which has been taken to imply that he 
had been resident in Venice fourteen days—that is, 
from the 28th of August. None of his contemporaries 
or biographers mention a visit to Venice at the end 
of August 1529. It has, therefore, been conjectured 
that he went there after leaving Ferrara, but that 
his mission was one of a very secret nature. This 
seems inconsistent with the impatient desire ex- 
pressed by the War Office for his return to Florence 
after the 8th of August. Allowing for exchange of 
letters and rate of travelling, Michelangelo could 
not have reached home much before the 15th. It is 
also inconsistent with the fact that he was expected 
in Arezzo at the beginning of September. I shall 
have to return later on to the Fzcordo in question, 
which has an important bearing on the next and 
most dramatic episode in his biography. 


1 Letter from Ant. Fr. degli Albizzi to the Ten, September 8, 1529 
Gaye, ii. 206. 


416 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Ill. 


Michelangelo must certainly have been at Flor- 
ence soon after the middle of September. One of 
those strange panics to which he was constitution- 
ally subject, and which impelled him to act upon a 
suddenly aroused instinct, came now to interrupt 
his work at S. Miniato, and sent him forth into 
outlawry. It was upon the 21st of September that 
he fled from Florence, under circumstances which 
have given considerable difficulty to his biographers. 
Iam obliged to disentangle the motives and to set 
forth the details of this escapade, so far as it is 
possible for criticism to connect them into a cohe- 
rent narrative. With this object in view, I will 
begin by translating what Condivi says upon the 
subject.’ 

“Michelangelo’s sagacity with regard to the im- 
portance of S. Miniato guaranteed the safety of the 
town, and proved a source of great damage to the 
enemy. Although he had taken care to secure the 
position, he still remained at his post there, in case 
of accidents; and after passing some six months, 
rumours began to circulate among the soldiers about — 
expected treason. Buonarroti, then, noticing these 
reports, and being also warned by certain officers 
who were his friends, approached the Signory, and 
laid before them what he had heard and seen. He 


? Condivi, p. 47. 


FLIGHT FROM FLORENCE. 417 


explained the danger hanging over the city, and told 
them there was still time to provide against it, if 
they would. Instead of receiving thanks for this 
service, he was abused, and rebuked as being 
timorous and too suspicious. The man who made 
him this answer would have done better had he 
opened his ears to good advice; for when the 
Medici returned, he was beheaded, whereas he 
might have kept himself alive. When Michel- 
angelo perceived how little his words were worth, 
and in what certain peril the city stood, he caused 
one of the gates to be opened, by the authority 
which he possessed, and went forth with two of his 
comrades, and took the road for Venice.” 

As usual with Condivi, this paragraph gives a 
general and yet substantially accurate account of 
what really took place. The decisive document, 
however, which throws light upon Michelangelo’s 
mind in the transaction, is a letter written by him 
from Venice to his friend Battista della Palla on the 
25th of September. Palla, who was an agent for 
Francis I. in works of Italian art, antiques, and bric- 
a-brac, had long purposed a journey into France; 
and Michelangelo, considering the miserable state of 
Italian politics, agreed to join him. These explana- 
tions will suffice to make the import of Michel- 
angelo’s letter clear.! 

“ Battista, dearest friend, I left Florence, as I 
_ think you know, meaning to go to France. When 


1 Lettere, No. cdvi. 
vou. L z 2D 


418 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


I reached Venice, I inquired about the road, and 
they told me I should have to pass through German 
territory, and that the journey is both perilous and 
difficult. Therefore I thought it well to ask you, 
at your pleasure, whether you are still inclined to go, 
and to beg you; and so | entreat you, let me know, 
and say where you want me to wait for you, and 
we will travel together. I left home without speak- 
ing to any of my friends, and in great confusion. 
You know that I wanted in any case to go to 
France, and often asked for leave, but did not get 
it. Nevertheless I was quite resolved, and without 
any sort of fear, to see the end of the war out first. 
But on Tuesday morning, September 21, a certain 
person came out by the gate at S. Nicold, where 
I was attending to the bastions, and whispered in 
my ear that, if I meant to save my life, I must not 
stay at Florence. He accompanied me home, dined 
there, brought me horses, and never left my side till 
he got me outside the city, declaring that this was 
my salvation. Whether God or the devil was the 
man, I do not know. 

‘‘Pray answer the questions in this letter as soon 
as possible, because I am burning with impatience 
to set out. If you have changed your mind, and do 
not care to go, still let me know, so that I may pro- 
vide as best I can for my own journey.” 

What appears manifest from this document is 
that Michelangelo was decoyed away from Florence 
by some one, who, acting on his sensitive nervous 


BAGLIONIS TREASON. 419 


temperament, persuaded him that his life was in 
danger. Who the man was we do not know, but 
he must have been a person delegated by those who 
had a direct interest in removing Buonarroti from 
the place. If the controller-general of the defences 
already scented treason in the air, and was com- 
municating his suspicions to the Signory, Malatesta 
Baglioni, the arch-traitor, who afterwards delivered 
Florence over for a price to Clement, could not but 
have wished to frighten him away. 

From another of Michelangelo’s letters we learn 
that he carried 3000 ducats in specie with him on 
the journey.’ It is unlikely that he could have 
disposed so much cash upon his person. He must 
have had companions. 

Talking with Michelangelo in 1549—that is, twenty 
years after the event—Busini heard from his lips this 
account of the flight.” “‘I asked Michelangelo what 
was the reason of his departure from Florence. He 
spoke as follows: ‘I was one of the Nine when 
the Florentine troops mustered within our lines 
under Malatesta Baglioni and Mario Orsini and the 
other generals: whereupon the Ten distributed the 
men along the walls and bastions, assigning to each 
captain his own post, with victuals and provisions ; 
and among the rest, they gave eight pieces of 
artillery to Malatesta for the defence of part of 
the bastions at S. Miniato. He did not, however, 

mount these guns within the bastions, but below 


1 Lettere, No. cdvii. 2 Busini, p. 104. 


420 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


them, and set no guard.’ Michelangelo, as archi- 
tect and magistrate, having to inspect the lines at 
S. Miniato, asked Mario Orsini how it was that 
Malatesta treated his artillery so carelessly. The 
latter answered: ‘You must know that the men of 
his house are all traitors, and in time he too will 
betray this town.’ These words inspired him with 
such terror that he was obliged to fly, impelled by 
dread lest the city should come to misfortune, and 
he together with it. Having thus resolved, he 
found Rinaldo Corsini, to whom he communicated 
his thoughts, and Corsini replied lightly: ‘I will go 
with you.’ So they mounted horse with a sum of 
money, and rode to the Gate of Justice, where the 
guards would not let them pass. While waiting 
there, some one sung out: ‘Let him by, for he is 
of the Nine, and it is Michelangelo.’ So they went 
forth, three on horseback, he, Rinaldo, and that 
man of his who never left him.* They came to 
Castelnuovo (in the Garfagnana), and heard that 
Tommaso Soderini and Niccold Capponi were stay- 
ing there. Michelangelo refused to go and see 
them, but Rinaldo went, and when he came back 
to Florence, as I shall relate, he reported how 
Niccold had said to him: ‘O Rinaldo, I dreamed 
to-night that Lorenzo Zampalochi had been made — 
Gonfalonier ;’ alluding to Lorenzo Giacomini, who 
had a swollen leg, and had been his adversary in 


1 Probably Antonio Mini is meant, 
2 They had recently left Florence as exiles. 


JOURNEY TO VENICE. 421 


the Ten. Well, they took the road for Venice; 
but when they came to Polesella, Rinaldo proposed 
to push on to Ferrara and have an interview with 
Galeotto Giugni.' This he did, and Michelangelo 
awaited him, for so he promised. Messer Galeotto, 
who was spirited and sound of heart, wrought so 
with Rinaldo that he persuaded him to turn back 
to Florence. But Michelangelo pursued his journey 
to Venice, where he took a house, intending in due 
season to travel into France.” 

Varchi follows this report pretty closely, except 
that he represents Rinaldo Corsini as having strongly 
urged him to take flight, “affirming that the city in 
a few hours, not to say days, would be in the hands 
of the Medici.”? Varchi adds that Antonio Mini 
rode in company with Michelangelo, and, according 
to his account of the matter, the three men came 
together to Ferrara. There the Duke offered hospi- 
tality to Michelangelo, who refused to exchange his 
inn for the palace, but laid all the cash he carried 
with him at the disposition of his Excellency. 

Segni, alluding briefly to this flight of Michel- 
angelo from Florence, says that he arrived at Castel- 
nuovo with Rinaldo Corsini, and that what they 
communicated to Niccold Capponi concerning the 
treachery of Malatesta and the state of the city, so 
affected the ex-Gonfalonier that he died of a fever 
after seven days.® Nardi, an excellent authority on 


1 The Florentine envoy there. 2 Varchi, Stor. Fior., vol. ii. p. 133. 
3 Istorie Fiorentinit. Firenze: Barbéra, 1857, p. 137. 


422 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


all that concerns Florence during the siege, con- 
firms the account that Michelangelo left his post 
together with Corsini under a panic; “by common 
agreement, or through fear of war, as man’s fragility 
is often wont to do.”! Vasari, who in his account 
of this episode seems to have had Varchi’s narrative 
under his eyes, adds a trifle of information, to the 
effect that Michelangelo was accompanied upon his 
flight, not only by Antonio Mini, but also by his 
old friend Piloto.? It may be worth adding that 
while reading in the Archivio Buonarroti, I dis- 
covered two letters from a friend named Piero 
Paesano addressed to Michelangelo on January 1, 
1530, and April 21, 1532, both of which speak of 
his having “fled from Florence.” ‘The earlier plainly 
says: ‘“‘I heard from Santi Quattro (the Cardinal, 
probably) that you have left Florence in order to 
escape from the annoyance and also from the evil 
fortune of the war in which the country is engaged.” 
These letters, which have not been edited, and the 
first of which is important, since it was sent to 
Michelangelo in Florence, help to prove that Michel- 
angelo’s friends believed he had run away from 
Florence.’ 


1 Tstorie della Citta di Firenze. Firenze: Le Monnier, vol. ii. p. 159. 

2 Vasari, xii. 209. He says the sum of money carried was 12,000 
crowns, Varchi calls them 12,000 florins. Michelangelo himself men- 
tions 3000 ducats. 

3 Arch, Buon., Cod. x. 587-588. Paesano writes his first letter from 
Regentia, January 1, 1530. He addresses Michelangelo as “ Caro Com- 
pare,” and after some preliminaries, in which he says that his affairs 
have taken him to Bologna, he proceeds : “Ho inteso da Santi Quattro 


THE RICORDO DATED SEPTEMBER 10. 423 


It was necessary to enter into these particulars, 
partly in order that the reader may form his own 
judgment of the motives which prompted Michel- 
angelo to desert his official post at Florence, and 
partly because we have now to consider the ficordo 
above mentioned, with the puzzling date, September 
10.1 This document is a note of expenses incurred 
during a residence of fourteen days at Venice. It 
runs as follows :— 

‘Honoured Sir. In Venice, this tenth day of 
September. ... Ten ducats to Rinaldo Corsini. 
Five ducats to Messer Loredan for the rent of 
the house. Seventeen lire for the stockings of 
Antonio (Mini, perhaps). For two stools, a table 
to eat on, and a coffer, half a ducat. Hight soldi 
for straw. Forty soldi for the hire of the bed. Ten 
lire to the man (fante) who came from Florence. 
Three ducats to Bondino for the journey to Venice 
with boats. Twenty soldi to Piloto for a pair of 
shoes. Fourteen days’ board in Venice, twenty 
lire.” 

It has been argued from the date of the unfinished 


che voi vi siete partito da Fiorenza per fugire al fastido et ancora la 
mala fortuna della guerra del pacse.” He then offers him free quarters 
in his own house, wherever that was, so long as Michelangelo chose to 
stay with him. It appears that this letter was not answered, for on 
the 21st of April 1532 Paesano writes again, this time from Argento, 
to his “ Compare Carissimo,” saying that he wishes to remind him that 
his old friend is still alive. He then refers to the former letter: 
“Essendo io a Bologna per visitare Santi Quattro, et lui mi disse che 
voi eravate fugito di fiorenza et andato a Venezia et io scrissi una lettera 
a Venezia.” 
1 Lettere, p. Gor. 


424 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


letter below which these items are jotted down, 
that Michelangelo must have been in Venice early 
in September, before his flight from Florence at the 
end of that month. But whatever weight we may 
attach to this single date, there is no corroborative 
proof that he travelled twice to Venice, and every- 
thing in the Aucordo indicates that it refers to the 
period of his flight from Florence. The sum paid to 
Corsini comes first, because it must have been dis- 
bursed when that man broke the journey at Ferrara. 
Antonio Mini and Piloto are both mentioned: a 
house has been engaged, and furnished with Michel- 
angelo’s usual frugality, as though he contemplated 
a residence of some duration. All this confirms 
Busini, Varchi, Segni, Nardi, and Vasari in the 
general outlines of their reports. I am of opinion 
that, unassisted by further evidence, the Ricordo, in 
spite of its date, will not bear out Gotti’s view that 
Michelangelo sought Venice on a privy mission at 
the end of August 1529.1 He was not likely tc 


1 See Gotti, vol. i. p. 189. I have examined the original document 
in the Archivio Buonarroti. The date is certainly correctly given by 
Gotti. The unfinished letter runs thus: “Ho® mio maggiore in 
Vinegia oggi questo di dieci di secte.” Michelangelo sometimes spelt 
the month September thus—Sectembre. I found an instance of it 
in the Codex Vaticanus of the Rime. The date may possibly have 
contained the error of September, when Michelangelo wished to write 
October, and for this reason the word Secte may not have been finished. 
That the letter was begun and flung aside for some reason seems certain. 
Perhaps he preferred to re-write the proper date, October Io, and kept 
the discarded rough copy by him. His Ricordi are frequently jotted 
upon backs of drawings, and any pieces of paper which came to hand. 
I ought to add that Signor Gotti has somewhat confused the evidence 


SOJOURN AT VENICE. 425 


have been employed as ambassador extraordinary ; 
the Signory required his services at home; and after 
Ferrara, Venice had little of importance to show the 
controller-general of defences in the way of earth- 
works and bastions. 


IV. 


Varchi says that Michelangelo, when he reached 
Venice, ‘‘ wishing to avoid visits and ceremonies, 
of which he was the greatest enemy, and in order 
to live alone, according to his custom, far away from 
company, retired quietly to the Giudecca; but the 
Signory, unable to ignore the advent of so eminent 
aman, sent two of their first noblemen to visit him 


of the Ricordo by inserting after the words “ Dieci lire al fante che 
venne da Firenze” the following in brackets: ‘ (Bastiano Scarpellino).” 
Now there is nothing about Lastiano Scarpellino in the autograph. 

The main argument against the view 1 have expressed above is 
Michelangelo’s own statement in his letter to Palla, “Io parti’ senza 
far motto a messuno degli amici mia.” Gotti and others think this in- 
compatible with Corsini’s and Piloto’s participation in the flight from 
Venice. But, in the troubled state of the city, it may have been prudent 
to mention no names. Besides, Corsini’s ard Piloto’s presence in Venice, 
supposing Michelangelo went there on a secret mission in August, would 
have been, to say the least, superfluous, Michelangelo’s circumstantial 
account of his flight was certainly given to Busini in 1549—that is, 
twenty years after the event. But he is not likely to have forgotten 
the secret mission of August, if that really took place, or to have con- 
fused this with the flight in September. It must furthermore be 
remembered that Corsini and Piloto were prominent personages in 
Florentine society. Things recorded of them by contemporaries—Varchi, 
Segni, Nardi, Vasari—cannot have rested upon wholly false evidence, 


426 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


in the name of the Republic, and to offer kindly all 
things which either he or any persons of his train 
might stand in need of. This public compliment 
set forth the greatness of his fame as artist, and 
showed in what esteem the arts are held by their 
magnificent and most illustrious lordships.”* Vasari 
adds that the Doge, whom he calls Gritti, gave him 
commission to design a bridge for the Rialto, mar- 
vellous alike in its construction and its ornament.” 
Meanwhile the Signory of Florence issued a decree 
of outlawry against thirteen citizens who had quitted 
the territory without leave. It was promulgated on 
the 30th of September, and threatened them with 
extreme penalties if they failed to appear before the 
8th of October.2 On the 7th of October a second 
decree was published, confiscating the property of 
numerous exiles. But this document does not con- 
tain the name of Michelangelo; and by a third 
decree, dated November 16, it appears that the 
Government were satisfied with depriving him of 
his office and stopping his pay.* We gather indeed, 
from what Condivi and Varchi relate, that they 
displayed great eagerness to get him back, and cor- 
responded to this intent with their envoy at Ferrara. 
Michelangelo’s flight from Florence seemed a matter 
of sufficient importance to be included in the des- 


1 Varchi, ii, 133. 

® Vasari, xii. 211. Andrea Gritti died in 1528, aud was succeeded 
by Pietro Lando. 

® Gotti, ii, 63. 4 Gotti, vol. i. p. 193. 


SENTENCE OF OUTLAWRY. 427 


patches of the French ambassador resident at Venice. 
Lazare de Baif, knowing his master’s desire to engage 
the services of the great sculptor, and being pro- 
bably informed of Buonarroti’s own wish to retire 
to France, wrote several letters in the month of 
October, telling Francis that Michelangelo might 
be easily persuaded to join his court." We do not 
know, however, whether the King acted on this 
hint. 

His friends at home took the precaution of secur- 
ing his effects, fearing that a decree for their con- 
fiscation might be issued. We possess a schedule 
of wine, wheat, and furniture found in his house, 
and handed over by the servant Caterina to his old 
friend Francesco Granacci for safe keeping.” They 
also did their best to persuade Michelangelo that he 
ought to take measures for returning under a safe- 
conduct. Galeotto Giugni wrote upon this subject 
to the War Office, under date October 13, from 
Ferrara.” He says that Michelangelo has begged 
him to intercede in his favour, and that he is will- 
ing to return and lay himself at the feet of their 
lordships. In answer to this despatch, news was 
sent to Giugni on the 20th that the Signory had 
signed a safe-conduct for Buonarroti.* On the 22nd 
Granacci paid Sebastiano di Francesco, a stone- 
cutter, to whom Michelangelo was much attached, 


1 DQwore et la Vie, p. 275. 
2 Gotti, ii. 73. It bears date October 12. 
3 Gaye, ll. 209. 4 Tbid., p. 210. 


428 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


money for his journey to Venice.’ It appears that 
this man set out upon the 23rd, carrying letters 
from Giovan Battista della Palla, who had now 
renounced all intention of retiring to France, and 
was enthusiastically engaged in the defence of 
Florence. On the return of the Medici, Palla was 
imprisoned in the castle of Pisa, and paid the 
penalty of his patriotism by death.” A second 
letter which he wrote to Michelangelo on this occa- 
sion deserves to be translated, since it proves the 
high spirit with which the citizens of Florence 
were now awaiting the approach of the Prince of 
Orange and his veteran army.’ ‘“ Yesterday I sent 
you a letter, together with ten from other friends, 
and the safe-conduct granted by the Signory for the 
whole month of November, and though I feel sure 
that it will reach you safely, I take the precaution 
of enclosing a copy under this cover. I need hardly 
repeat what I wrote at great length in my last, nor 
shall I have recourse to friends for the same purpose. 
They all of them, I know, with one voice, without 
the least disagreement or hesitation, have exhorted 
you, immediately upon the receipt of their letters 
and the safe-conduct, to return home, in order to 
preserve your life, your country, your friends, your 

1 Ricordo quoted above in Gotti, i. 73. 

2 Varchi, ii. 397. “Trovossi anch’ egli una mattina morto nella 
prigione, dubitandosi che non dovesse esser chiesto di francia.” 

3 Gotti, i 195. The letter is in the Archivio Buonarroti, Cod, vii. 


No. 199. It is not quite accurately given by Gotti, the word jfixa 
having been misread into pigra, and so forth, 


BATTISTA DELLA PALLA. 429 


honour, and your property, and also to enjoy those 
times so earnestly desired and hoped for by you.’ 
If any one had foretold that I could listen without 
the least affright to news of an invading army march- 
ing on our walls, this would have seemed to me im- 
possible. And yet I now assure you that I am not 
only quite fearless, but also full of confidence in a 
glorious victory. For many days past my soul has 
been filled with such gladness, that if God, either 
for our sins or for some other reason, according to 
the mysteries of His just judgment, does not permit 
that army to be broken in our hands, my sorrow will 
be the same as when one loses, not a good thing 
hoped for, but one gained and captured. ‘To such 
an extent am I convinced in my fixed imagination 
of our success, and have put it to my capital account. 
I already foresee our militia system, established 
on a permanent basis, and combined with that of 
the territory, carrying our city to the skies.” I con- 
template a fortification of Florence, not temporary, 
as it now is, but with walls and bastions to be built 
hereafter. The principal and most difficult step has 
been already taken; the whole space round the 
town swept clean, without regard for churches or 
for monasteries, in accordance with the public need. 
I contemplate in these our fellow-citizens a noble 
spirit of disdain for all their losses and the bygone 


1 Probably the freedom of the Republic. 
2 This milizia had been established on the cee suggested by 
Machiavelli. 


430 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


luxuries of villa-life ; an admirable unity and fervour 
for the preservation of liberty; fear of God alone ; 
confidence in Him and in the justice of our cause ; 
innumerable other good things, certain to bring again 
the age of gold, and which I hope sincerely you 
will enjoy in company with all of us who are your 
friends. For all these reasons, I most earnestly 
entreat you, from the depth of my heart, to come at 
once and travel through Lucca, where I will meet 
you, and attend you with due form and ceremony 
until here: such is my intense desire that our 
country should not lose you, nor you her. If, after 
your arrival at Lucca, you should by some accident 
fail to find me, and you should not care to come to 
Florence without my company, write a word, I beg. 
I will set out at once, for I feel sure that I shall get 


permission. . . . God, by His goodness, keep you 
in good health, and bring you back to us safe and 
happy.” 


Michelangelo set forth upon his journey soon 
after the receipt of this letter. He was in Ferrara 
on the 9th of November, as appears from a des- 
patch written by Galeotto Giugni, recommending 
him to the Government of Florence.’ Letters patent 
under the seal of the Duke secured him free pas- 
sage through the city of Modena and the province of 
Garfagnana.” In spite of these accommodations, he 


1 Gaye, ii, 212. 
2 Under date November 10. The safe-conduct lasted fifteen days. 
See Gotti, ii. 74. 


RETURN TO FLORENCE. 431 


seems to have met with difficulties on the way, 
owing to the disturbed state of the country. His 
friend Giovan Battista Palla was waiting for him at 
Lucca, without information of his movements, up 
to the 18th of the month. He had left Florence on 
the 11th, and spent the week at Pisa and Lucca, 
expecting news in vain. ‘Then, “with one foot in 
the stirrup,” as he says, ‘“‘the license granted by 
the Signory” having expired, he sends another mis- 
sive to Venice, urging Michelangelo not to delay 
a day longer.” “As I cannot persuade myself that 
you do not intend to come, I urgently request you to 
reflect, if you have not already started, that the pro- 
perty of those who incurred outlawry with you is 
being sold, and if you do not arrive within the term 
conceded by your safe-conduct—that is, during this 
month—the same will happen to yourself, without 
the possibility of any mitigation. If you do come, 
as I still hope and firmly believe, speak with my 
honoured friend Messer Filippo Calandrini here, to 
whom I have given directions for your attendance 
from this town without trouble to yourself. God 
keep you safe from harm, and grant we see you 
shortly in our country, by His aid, victorious.” 

With this letter, Palla, who was certainly a good 
friend to the wayward artist, and an amiable man to 
boot, disappears out of this history. At some time 
about the 20th of November, Michelangelo returned 


1 Gotti, ii. 72; Arch. Buon., Cod. vii. 200. I shall print the original 
in the Appendix. 


432 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


to Florence. We do not know how he finished the 
journey, and how he was received; but the sentence 
of outlawry was commuted, on the 23rd, into exclu- 
sion from the Grand Couticil for three years.’ He 
set to work immediately at S. Miniato, strengthen- 
ing the bastions, and turning the church-tower into 
a station for. sharpshooters.? Florence by this time 
had lost all her territory except a few strong 
places, Pisa, Livorno, Arezzo, Empoli, Volterra.* The — 
Emperor Charles V. signed her liberties away to 
Clement by the peace of Barcelona (June 20, 1 529), 
and the Republic was now destined to be the appan- 
age of his illegitimate daughter in marriage with the 
bastard Alessandro de’ Medici. It only remained 
for the army of the Prince of Orange to reduce the 
city. When Michelangelo arrived, the Imperial 
troops were leaguered on the heights above the town. 
The inevitable end of the unequal struggle could 
be plainly foreseen by those who had not Palla’s 
enthusiasm to sustain their faith. In spite of 
Ferrucci’s genius and spirit, in spite of the good-will 
of the citizens, Florence was bound to fall. While 
admitting that Michelangelo abandoned his post in 
a moment of panic, we must do him the justice 
of remembering that he resumed it when all his 
darkest prognostications were being slowly but surely 

1 Gaye, li. 214. 

2 This, at any rate, is the tradition of his earlier biographers. We 
have some reason, however, to doubt whether he was actively employed 


to any very great extent after his return. 
3 Varchi, ii. 195. 


DEFENCES AT S. MINIATO. 433 


realised. The worst was that his old enemy, Mala- 
testa Baglioni, had now opened a regular system of 
intrigue with Clement and the Prince of Orange, 
terminating in the treasonable cession of the city. 
It was not until August 1530 that Florence finally 
capitulated.’ Still the months which intervened 
between that date and Michelangelo’s return from 
Venice were but a dying close, a slow agony inter- 
rupted by spasms of ineffectual heroism. 

In describing the works at 8S. Miniato, Condivi 
lays great stress upon Michelangelo’s plan for arm- 
ing the bell-tower.? ‘The incessant cannonade of 
the enemy had broken it in many places, and there 
was a serious risk that it might come crashing down, 
to the great injury of the troops within the bastion. 
He caused a large number of mattresses well stuffed 
with wool to be brought, and lowered these by night 
from the summit of the tower down to its founda- 
tions, protecting those parts which were exposed to 
fire. Inasmuch as the cornice projected, the mat- 
tresses hung free in air, at the distance of six 
cubits from the wall; so that when the missiles of 
the enemy arrived, they did little or no damage, 
partly owing to the distance they had travelled, and 
partly to the resistance offered by this swinging, 
yielding panoply.” An anonymous writer, quoted 
by Milanesi, gives a fairly intelligible account of the 
system adopted by Michelangelo.* ‘“‘ The outer walls 
of the bastion were composed of unbaked bricks, 


1 Varchi, ii. 365. * Condivi, p. 48. 3 Vasari, Xii. 365. 
VoL. I. 2k 


434 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


the clay of which was mingled with chopped tow. 
Its thickness he filled in with earth; and,” adds 
this critic, “of all the buildings which remained, 
this alone survived the siege.”* It was objected 
that, in designing these bastions, he multiplied the 
flanking lines and embrasures beyond what was 
either necessary or safe. But, observes the anony- 
mous writer, all that his duty as architect demanded 
was that he should lay down a plan consistent with 
the nature of the ground, leaving details to practical 
engineers and military men.” “If, then, he com- 
mitted any errors in these matters, it was not so 
much his fault as that of the Government, who 
did not provide him with experienced coadjutors. 
But how can mere merchants understand the art of 
war, which needs as much science as any other of 
the arts, nay more, inasmuch as it is obviously more 
noble and more perilous?” The confidence now 
reposed in him is further demonstrated by a license 
granted on the 22nd of February 1530, empowering 
him to ascend the cupola of the Duomo on one 
special occasion with two companions, in order to 
obtain a general survey of the environs of Florence.* 


1 Michelangelo’s bastions were afterwards rebuilt upon a permanent 
plan. Vauban, when he came to Florence, is said to have surveyed 
these works and measured them. I shall print in the Appendix a docu- 
ment supplied me by Cav. Biagi, which refers to the wool used for these 
defences. 

2 Compare what Varchi, ii. 147, says upon this point. 

8 Cesare Guasti, La Cupola di S. M. del Firenze, quoted by Gotti, 
i197. The fact that only a single permission for a single day was 
granted has induced Springer to believe that, after his return from 
Venice, Michelangelo took no prominent part in the defence of Florence. 


FLORENCE CAPITULATES, 435 


Michelangelo, in the midst of these serious duties, 
could not have had much time to bestow upon his 
art. Still there is no reason to doubt Vasari’s em- 
phatic statement that he went on working secretly 
at the Medicean monuments.!' To have done so 
openly while the city was in conflict to the death 
with Clement, would have been dangerous; and 
yet every one who understands the artist’s tempera- 
ment must feel that a man like Buonarroti was 
likely to seek rest and distraction from painful 
anxieties in the tranquillising labour of the chisel. 
It is also certain that, during the last months of the 
siege, he found leisure to paint a picture of Leda 
for the Duke of Ferrara, which will be mentioned 
in its proper place. 

Florence surrendered in the month of August 
1530. he terms were drawn up by Don Ferrante 
Gonzaga, who commanded the Imperial forces after 
the death of Filiberto, Prince of Orange, in concert 
with the Pope’s commissary-general, Baccio Valori. 
Malatesta Baglioni, albeit he went about muttering 
that Florence “was no stable for mules” (alluding 
to the fact that all the Medici were bastards), ap- 
proved of the articles, and showed by his conduct 
that he had long been plotting treason. The act of 
capitulation was completed on the 12th, and accepted 
unwillingly by the Signory. Valori, supported by 
Baglioni’s military force, reigned supreme in the 
city, and prepared to reinstate the exiled family of 


1 Vasari, xii. 207. 


436 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


princes! It is said that Marco Dandolo of Venice, 
when news reached the Pregadi of the fall of 
Florence, exclaimed aloud: “ Baglioni has put upon 
his head the cap of the biggest traitor upon record.” 


V. 


The city was saved from wreckage by a lucky 
quarrel between the Italian and Spanish troops in 
the Imperial camp. But no sooner was Clement 
aware that Florence lay at his mercy, than he dis- 
regarded the articles of capitulation, and began to 
act as an autocratic despot. Before confiding the 
government to his kinsmen, the Cardinal Ippolito 
and Alessandro Duke of Penna, he made Valori in- 
stitute a series of criminal prosecutions against the 
patriots.” Battista della Palla and Raffaello Girolami 
were sent to prison and poisoned. Five citizens 
were tortured and decapitated in one day of October. 
Those who had managed to escape from Florence 
were sentenced to exile, outlawry, and confiscation 
of goods by hundreds. Charles V. had finally to 
interfere and put a stop to the fury of the Pope's 
revenges. How cruel and exasperated the mind of 


1 See Capponi, op. cit., lib, vi. cap. Io. Compare Varchi, ii, pp. 
373-392: 

2 Varchi, ii. 396-414. Whole pages are occupied by lists of these 
victims to Papal vengeance. 


CLEMENT’S REVENGE. 437 


Clement was, may be gathered from his treatment 
of Fra Benedetto da Foiano, who sustained the spirit 
of the burghers by his fiery preaching during the 
privations of the siege. Foiano fell into the clutches 
of Malatesta Baglioni, who immediately sent him 
down to Rome. By the Pope’s orders the wretched 
friar was flung into the worst dungeon in the Castle 
of §. Angelo, and there slowly starved to death 
by gradual diminution of his daily dole of bread 
and water.’ Readers of Benvenuto Cellini’s Memoirs 
will remember the horror with which he speaks of 
this dungeon and of its dreadful reminiscences, when 
it fell to his lot to be imprisoned there.? 

Such being the mood of Clement, it is not wonder- 
ful that Michelangelo should have trembled for his 
own life or liberty. As Varchi says, ‘‘ He had been 
a member of the Nine, had fortified the hill and 
armed the bell-tower of S. Miniato. What was 
more annoying, he was accused, though falsely, of 
proposing to raze the palace of the Medici, where 
in his boyhood Lorenzo and Piero dei Medici had 
shown him honour as a guest at their own tables, 
and to name the space on which it stood the Place 
of Mules.”* For this reason he hid himself, as 
Condivi and Varchi assert, in the house of a trusty 
friend. The Senator Filippo Buonarroti, who dili- 
gently collected traditions about his illustrious an- 
cestor, believed that his real place of retreat was the 


1 Varchi, ii. 387. 2 Cellini, Book I. chap. cxx. 
3 Varchi, ii. 399. 


438 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


bell-tower of S. Nicold, beyond the Arno." “‘ When 
Clement’s fury abated,” says Condivi, “he wrote to 
Florence ordering that search should be made for 
Michelangelo, and adding that when he was found, 
if he agreed to go on working at the Medicean 
monuments, he should be left at liberty and treated 
with due courtesy. On hearing news of this, Michel- 
angelo came forth from his hiding-place, and re- 
sumed the statues in the sacristy of S. Lorenzo, 
moved thereto more by fear of the Pope than by 
love for the Medici.”* From correspondence carried 
on between Rome and Florence during November 
and December, we learn that his former pension of 
fifty crowns a month was renewed, and that Giovan 
Battista Figiovanni, a Prior of S. Lorenzo, was ap- 
pointed the Pope’s agent and paymaster.° 

An incident of some interest in the art-history 
of Florence is connected with this return of the 
Medici, and probably also with Clement’s desire to 
concentrate Michelangelo’s energies upon the sac- 
risty. So far back as May 10, 1508, Piero Soderini 
wrote to the Marquis of Massa-Carrara, begging him 
to retain a large block of marble until Michelangelo 
could come in person and superintend its rough- 
hewing for a colossal statue to be placed on the 
Piazza.t After the death of Leo, the stone was 
assigned to Baccio Bandinelli; but Michelangelo, 


1 Gotti, i. 199. 

2 Condivi, p. 49. He adds, what is clearly wrong, that it was about 
fifteen years since Michelangelo had used the sculptor’s tools. 

3 Gaye, li. 221. 4 Thid., ii. 97-98. 





HERCULES AND CACUS, 





THE HERCULES AND CACUS. 439 


being in favour with the Government at the time of 
the expulsion of the Medici, obtained the grant of 
it. His first intention, in which Bandinelli followed 
him, was to execute a Hercules trampling upon 
Cacus, which should stand as pendant to his own 
David. By a deliberation of the Signory, under 
date August 22, 1528, we are informed that the 
marble had been brought to Florence about three 
years earlier, and that Michelangelo now received 
instructions, couched in the highest terms of com- 
pliment, to proceed with a group of two figures 
until its accomplishment.’ If Vasari can be trusted, 
Michelangelo made numerous designs and models 
for the Cacus, but afterwards changed his mind, and 
thought that he would extract from the block a 
Samson triumphing over two prostrate Philistines.’ 
The evidence for this change of plan is not abso- 
lutely conclusive: ‘The deliberation of August 22, 
1528, indeed left it open to his discretion whether 
he should execute a Hercules and Cacus, or any 
other group of two figures; and the English nation 
at South Kensington possesses one of his noble little 
wax models for a Hercules.» We may perhaps, 
therefore, assume that while Bandinelli adhered to the 
Hercules and Cacus, Michelangelo finally decided on 
a Samson. At any rate, the block was restored in 

1 Gaye, ii. 97, 98. 

2 See Vasari, Life of Bandinelli, vol. x. pp. 305, 306, 311; Life of 
Pierino da Vinci, ibid., p. 289. 

3 See J. C. Robinson’s Catalogue to the Italian Sculpture at 8, K,, 
Dp. 141-144. 


440 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


1530 to Bandinelli, who produced the misbegotten 
group which still deforms the Florentine Piazza. 

Michelangelo had some reason to be jealous of 
Bandinelli, who exercised considerable influence at 
the Medicean court, and was an unscrupulous enemy 
both in word and deed. A man more widely and 
worse hated than Bandinelli never lived. If any 
piece of mischief happened which could be fixed 
upon him with the least plausibility, he bore the 
blame. Accordingly, when Buonarroti’s workshop 
happened to be broken open, people said that Bandi- 
nelli was the culprit. Antonio Mini left the following 
record of the event:’ ‘‘Three months before the 
siege, Michelangelo’s studio in Via Mozza was burst 
into with chisels ; about fifty drawings of figures were 
stolen, and among them the designs for the Medicean 
tombs, with others of great value; also four models 
in wax and clay. The young men who did it left 
by accident a chisel marked with the letter M., 
which led to their discovery. When they knew 
they were detected, they made off or hid themselves, 
and sent to say they would return the stolen articles, 
and begged for pardon.” Now the chisel branded 
with an M. was traced to Michelangelo, the father 
of Baccio Bandinelli, and no one doubted that he 
was the burglar. 

The history of Michelangelo's Leda, which now 
survives only in doubtful reproductions, may be in- 
troduced by a passage from Condivi’s account of his 


1 Gotti, i. 203. 


THE LEDA. 441 


master’s visit to Ferrara in 1529.' ‘“‘The Duke re- 
ceived him with great demonstrations of joy, no less 
by reason of his eminent fame than because Don 
Ercole, his son, was Captain of the Signory of 
Florence. Riding forth with him in person, there 
was nothing appertaining to the business of his 
mission which the Duke did not bring beneath his 
notice, whether fortifications or artillery. Beside 
this, he opened his own private treasure-room, dis- 
playing all its contents, and particularly some pic- 
tures and portraits of his ancestors, executed by 
masters in their time excellent. When the hour 
approached for Michelangelo’s departure, the Duke 
jestingly said to him: ‘You are my prisoner now. 
If you want me to let you go free, I require that you 
shall promise to make me something with your own 
hand, according to your will and fancy, be it sculp- 
ture or painting.’ Michelangelo agreed; and when 
he arrived at Florence, albeit he was overwhelmed 
with work for the defences, he began a large piece 
for a saloon, representing the congress of the swan 
with Leda. The breaking of the egg was also intro- 
duced, from which sprang Castor and Pollux, accord- 
ing to the ancient fable. The Duke heard of this; 
and on the return of the Medici, he feared that he 
might lose so great a treasure in the popular disturb- 
ance which ensued. Accordingly he despatched one 
of his gentlemen, who found Michelangelo at home, 
and viewed the picture. After inspecting it, the man 
1 Condivi, p. 52. 


442 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


exclaimed: ‘Oh! this is a mere trifle.’ Michel- 
angelo inquired what his own art was, being aware 
that men can only form a proper judgment in the 
arts they exercise. The other sneered and answered : 
‘Iam amerchant. Perhaps he felt affronted at the 
question, and at not being recognised in his quality 
of nobleman; he may also have meant to depreciate 
the industry of the Florentines, who for the most 
part are occupied with trade, as though to say: 
‘You ask me what my art is? Is it possible you 
think a man like me could be a trader?’ Michei- 
angelo, perceiving his drift, growled out: ‘You are 
doing bad business for your lord! Take yourself 
away!’ Having thus dismissed the ducal messenger, 
he made a present of the picture, after a short while, 
to one of his serving-men, who, having two sisters 
to marry, begged for assistance. It was sent to 
France, and there bought by King Francis, where it 
still exists.” 

As a matter of fact, we know now that Antonio 
Mini, for a long time Michelangelo’s man of all 
work, became part owner of this Leda, and took it 
with him to France.’ A certain Francesco Tedaldi 
acquired pecuniary interest in the picture, of which 
one Benedetto Bene made a copy at Lyons in 1532. 
The original and the copy were carried by Mini to 


1 T do not concur with Heath Wilson’s conclusions about the Leda. 
Michelangelo probably gave it away to Mini in a fit of pique and gene- 
rosity. The man raised money on it for his journey with Tedaldi, and 
so the latter acquired an interest in it which has thrown some light 
upon its fate. 


HISTORY OF THE LEDA. 443 


Paris in 1533, and deposited in the house of Giu- 
liano Buonaccorsi, whence they were transferred in 
some obscure way to the custody of Luigi Alamanni, 
and finally passed into the possession of the King. 
Meanwhile, Antonio Mini died, and Tedaldi wrote 
a record of his losses and a confused account of 
money matters and broker business, which he sent 
to Michelangelo in 1540. The Leda remained at 
Fontainebleau till the reign of Louis XIII., when 
M. Desnoyers, Minister of State, ordered the picture 
to be destroyed because of its indecency. Pierre 
Mariette says that this order was not carried into 
effect ; for the canvas, in a sadly mutilated state, re- 
appeared some seven or eight years before his date 
of writing, and was seen by him. In spite of in- 
juries, he could trace the hand of a great master ; 
“and I confess that nothing I had seen from the 
brush of Michelangelo showed better painting.” He 
adds that it was restored by a second-rate artist and 
sent to England.2 What became of Mini’s copy is 
uncertain. We possess a painting in the Dresden 
Gallery, a Cartoon in the collection of the Royal 
Academy of England, and a large oil picture, 
much injured, in the vaults of the National Gallery.” 


1 Gotti, i. 201, 202. 2 Condivi, p. 185. 

3 It is to be regretted that these two great studies of Michelangelo’s 
Leda are practically hidden from the public eye ; one of them may not 
improbably be a contemporary replica, The style of the National 
Gallery painting, so far as I remember it, is superb in breadth and 
grandeur, The pose of the woman and the proportions of her adult 
heroic form strongly resemble those of the “Notte,” on which marble 
Michelangelo was working when he designed her. 


444 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


In addition to these works, there is a small marble 
statue in the Museo Nazionale at Florence. All of 
them represent Michelangelo's design. If mere in- 
decency could justify Desnoyers in his attempt to 
destroy a masterpiece, this picture deserved its fate. 
It represented the act of coition between a swan and 
a woman; and though we cannot hold Michelangelo 
responsible for the repulsive expression on the face 
of Leda, which relegates the marble of the Bargello 
to a place among pornographic works of art, there is 
no reason to suppose that the general scheme of his 
conception was abandoned in the copies made of it. 

Michelangelo, being a true artist, anxious only for 
the presentation of his subject, seems to have re- 
mained indifferent to its moral quality. Whether it 
was a crucifixion, or a congress of the swan with 
Leda, or a rape of Ganymede, or the murder of Holo- 
fernes in his tent, or the birth of Eve, he sought to 
seize the central point in the situation, and to ac- 
centuate its significance by the inexhaustible means 
at his command for giving plastic form to an idea. 
Those, however, who have paid attention to his work 
will discover that he always found emotional quality 
corresponding to the nature of the subject. His 
ways of handling religious and mythological motives 
differ in sentiment, and both are distinguished from 
his treatment of dramatic episodes. The man’s mind 
made itself a mirror to reflect the vision floating over 
it; he cared not what that vision was, so long as 
he could render it in lines of plastic harmony, and 


THE APOLLO FOR VALORI. 445 


express the utmost of the feeling which the theme 
contained. 

Among the many statues left unfinished by Michel- 
angelo is one belonging to this period of his life. 
“Tn order to ingratiate himself with Baccio Valori,” 
says Vasari, “he began a statue of three cubits in 
marble. It was an Apollo drawing a shaft from his 
quiver. This he nearly finished. It stands now in 
the chamber of the Prince of Florence; a thing of 
rarest beauty, though not quite completed.”* This 
noble piece of sculpture illustrates the certainty and 
freedom of the master’s hand. Though the last 
touches of the chisel are lacking, every limb palpi- 
tates and undulates with life. ‘The marble seems to 
be growing into flesh beneath the hatched lines 
left upon its surface. The pose of the young god, 
full of strength and sinewy, is no less admirable 
for audacity than for ease and freedom. Whether 
Vasari was right in his explanation of the action of 
this figure may be considered more than doubtful. 
Were we not accustomed to call it an Apollo, we 
should rather be inclined to class it with the Slaves 
of the Louvre, to whom in feeling and design it 
bears a remarkable resemblance. Indeed, it might 
be conjectured with some probability that, despair- 
ing of bringing his great design for the tomb of 
Julius to a conclusion, he utilised one of the projected 
captives for his present to the all-powerful vizier of the 


1 Vasari, xii. 212. The Apollo is now in the Bargello. It remained 
for many years neglected in the theatre of the Boboli Gardens. 


446 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Medicean tyrants. It ought, in conclusion, to be 
added, that there was nothing servile in Michel- 
angelo’s desire to make Valori his friend. He had 
accepted the political situation; and we have good 
reason, from letters written at a later date by Valori 
from Rome, to believe that this man took a sincere 
interest in the great artist. Moreover, Varchi, who 
is singularly severe in his judgment on the agents 
of the Medici, expressly states that Baccio Valori 
was “less cruel than the other Palleschi, doing many 
and notable services to some persons out of kindly 
feeling, and to others for money (since he had little 
and spent much); and this he was well able to per- 
form, seeing he was then the lord of Florence, and 
the first citizens of the land paid court to him and 
swelled his train.”? 


VI. 


During the siege Lodovico Buonarroti passed his 
time at Pisa. His little grandson, Lionardo, the 
sole male heir of the family, was with him. Born 
September 25, 1519, the boy was now exactly 
eleven years old, and by his father’s death in 1528 
he had been two years an orphan. Lionardo was 
ailing, and the old man wearied to return. His two 
sons, Gismondo and Giansimone, had promised to 

1 Varchi, ii. 397. 


TROUBLES ABOUT TOMB OF JULIUS. 447 


fetch him home when the country should be safe 
for travelling. But they delayed; and at last, upon 
the 30th of September, Lodovico wrote as follows to 
Michelangelo:?* ‘‘Some time since I directed a letter 
to Gismondo, from whom you have probably learned 
that I am staying here, and, indeed, too long; for 
the flight of Buonarroto’s pure soul to heaven, and 
my own need and earnest desire to come home, 
and Nardo’s state of health, all make me restless. 
The boy has been for some days out of health and 
pining, and I am anxious about him.” It is pro- 
bable that some means were found for escorting 
them both safely to Settignano. We hear no more 
about Lodovico till the period of his death, the date 
of which has not been ascertained with certainty. 

From the autumn of 1530 on to the end of 1533 
Michelangelo worked at the Medicean monuments. 
His letters are singularly scanty during all this 
period, but we possess sufficient information from 
other sources to enable us to reconstruct a portion 
of his life. What may be called the chronic malady 
of his existence, that never-ending worry with the 
tomb of Julius, assumed an acute form again in the 
spring of 1531. ‘The correspondence with Sebastiano 
del Piombo, which had been interrupted since 1525, 
now becomes plentiful, and enables us to follow some 
of the steps which led to the new and solemn con- 
tract of May 1532. 

It is possible that Michelangelo thought he ought 

1 Gotti, i. 208. 


448 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


to go to Rome in the beginning of the year. If we 
are right in ascribing a letter written by Benvenuto 
della Volpaia from Rome upon the 18th of January to 
the year 1531, and not to 1532, he must have already 
decided on this step. The document is curious in 
several respects.’ ‘‘ Yours of the 13th informs me 
that you want aroom. I shall be delighted if I can 
be of service to you in this matter; indeed, it is 
nothing in respect to what I should like to do for 
you. I can offer you a chamber or two without 
the least inconvenience; and you could not confer 
on me a greater pleasure than by taking up your 
abode with me in either of the two places which | 
will now describe. His Holiness has placed me in 
the Belvedere, and made me guardian there. To- 
morrow my things will be carried thither, for a perma- 
nent establishment ; and I can place at your disposal 
a room with a bed and everything you want. You 
can even enter by the gate outside the city, which 
opens into the spiral staircase, and reach your apart- 
ment and mine without passing through Rome. 
From here I can let you into the palace, for I keep 
a key at your service; and what is better, the Pope 
comes every day to visit us. If you decide on the 


1 Gotti, ii. 75. Benvenuto was the son of Lorenzo della Volpaia, the 
famous mechanician and clockmaker of Florence. Gotti regards this 
letter as belonging to 1531; but I think it probable that Volpaia used 
the Florentine style, and that it therefore belongs to 1532. At any rate, 
Sebastiano del Piombo, writing on February 8, 1532, mentions that he 
has met Volpaia, who spoke of having prepared rooms at the Belvedere 
for Michelangelo. Les Oorrespondants, p. 80. 


PROJECTED VISIT TO ROME. 449 


Belvedere, you must let me know the day of your 
departure, and about when you will arrive. In that 
case I will take up my post at the spiral staircase 
of Bramante, where you will be able to see me. If 
you wish, nobody but my brother and Mona Lisabetta 
and I shall know that you are here, and you shall 
do just as you please; and, in short, I beg you 
earnestly to choose this plan. Otherwise, come to 
the Borgo Nuovo, to the houses which Volterra built, 
the fifth house toward S. Angelo. I have rented it 
to live there, and my brother Fruosino is also going 
to live and keep shop in it. There you will have a 
room or two, if you like, at your disposal. Please 
yourself, and give the letter to Tommaso di Stefano 
Miniatore, who will address it to Messer Lorenzo de’ 
Medici, and I shall have it quickly.”? 

Nothing came of these proposals. But that 
Michelangelo did not abandon the idea of going to 
Rome appears from a letter of Sebastiano’s written 
on the 24th of February.” It was the first which 
passed between the friends since the terrible events 
of 1527 and 1530. For once, the jollity of the 
epicurean friar has deserted him. He writes as 
though those awful months of the sack of Rome 
were still present to his memory. “ After all those 
trials, hardships, and perils, God Almighty has left 
us alive and in health, by His mercy and piteous 

1 Tommaso may have been the son of Michelangelo’s old servant, 
Stefano di Tommaso, the miniaturist, 


2 Les Correspondants, p. 36. 
VOL. I. 26 


450 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


kindness. A thing, in sooth, miraculous, when I 
reflect upon it; wherefore His Majesty be ever held 
in gratitude. . . . Now, gossip mine, since we have 
passed through fire and water, and have experienced 
things we never dreamed of, let us thank God for 
all; and the little remnant left to us of life, may 
we at least employ it in such peace as can be had. 
For of a truth, what fortune does or does not do is 
of slight importance, seeing how scurvy and how 
dolorous she is. I am brought to this, that if the 
universe should crumble round me, I should not 
care, but laugh at all. Menighella will inform you 
what my life is, how I am.1 I do not yet seem to 
myself to be the same Bastiano I was before the 
Sack. I cannot yet get back into my former frame 
of mind.” In a postscript to this letter, eloquent 
by its very naiveté, Sebastiano says that he sees no 
reason for Michelangelo’s coming to Rome, except 
it be to look after his house, which is going to ruin, 
and the workshop tumbling to pieces. 

In another letter, of April 29, Sebastiano repeats 
that there is no need for Michelangelo to come 
to Rome, if it be only to put himself right with 
the Pope. Clement is sincerely his friend, and has 
forgiven the part he played during the siege of 
Florence He then informs his gossip that, having 
been lately at Pesaro, he met the painter Girolamo 


1 Menighella was a painter from the Valdarno, who amused Michel- 
angelo, as Topolino used to do, by his oddities and buffooneries. See 
Vasari, xii. 281. 

2 Les Oorrespondants, p. 38. See above. 


NEGOTIATIONS ABOUT THE TOMB. 451 


Genga, who promised to be serviceable in the matter 
of the tomb of Julius. The Duke of Urbino, accord- 
ing to this man’s account, was very eager to see 
it finished. “I replied that the work was going 
forward, but that 8000 ducats were needed for its 
completion, and we did not know where to get this 
money. He said that the Duke would provide, but 
his Lordship was afraid of losing both the ducats and 
the work, and was inclined to be angry. After a 
good deal of talking, he asked whether it would not 
be possible to execute the tomb upon a reduced 
scale, so as to satisfy both parties. I answered that 
you ought to be consulted.” We have reason to 
infer from this that the plan which was finally 
adopted, of making a mural monument with only 
a few figures from the hand of Michelangelo, had 
already been suggested. In his next letter, Sebastiano 
communicates the fact that he has been appointed 
to the office of Piombatore; ‘‘and if you could see 
me in my quality of friar, [ am sure you would 
laugh. I am the finest friar loon in Rome.” The 
Duke of Urbino’s agent, Hieronimo Staccoli, now 
appears for the first time upon the stage. It was 
through his negotiations that the former contracts 
for the tomb of Julius were finally annulled and 
a new design adopted. Michelangelo offered, with 
the view of terminating all disputes, to complete the 
monument on a reduced scale at his own cost, and 
furthermore to disburse the sum of 2000 ducats in 
discharge of any claims the Della Rovere might 


452 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


have against him.1 This seemed too liberal, and 
when Clement was informed of the project, he pro- 
mised to make better terms. Indeed, during the 
course of these negotiations the Pope displayed the 
ereatest interest in Michelangelo’s affairs.” Staccoli, 
on the Duke’s part, raised objections ; and Sebastiano 
had to remind him that, unless some concessions 
were made, the scheme of the tomb might fall 
through: “for it does not rain Michelangelos, and 
men could hardly be found to preserve the work, far 
less to finish it.” In course of time the Duke’s am- 
bassador at Rome, Giovan Maria della Porta, inter- 
vened, and throughout the whole business Clement 
was consulted upon every detail. 

Sebastiano kept up his correspondence through 
the summer of 1531. Meanwhile the suspense and 
anxiety were telling seriously on Michelangelo’s 
health. Already in June news must have reached 
Rome that his health was breaking down; for 
Clement sent word recommending him to work less, 
and to relax his spirits by exercise.’ ‘Toward the 
autumn he became alarmingly ill. We have a letter 
from Paolo Mini, the uncle of his servant Antonio, 
written to Baccio Valori on the 29th of September.* 
After describing the beauty of two statues for the 
Medicean tombs, Mini says he fears that ‘‘ Michel- 
angelo will not live long, unless some measures are 


1 See Lettere, No, cdvii. 

2 See the letter of June 16 about Michelangelo’s health and unre- 
piitting industry, and that of July 22. Les Correspondants, pp. 50-56. 

3 Ibid., p. 50. 4 Gaye, ii. 229. 


SERIOUS ILLNESS. 453 


taken for his benefit. He works very hard, eats 
little and poorly, and sleeps less. In fact, he is 
afflicted with two kinds of disorder, the one in his 
head, the other in his heart.’ Neither is incurable, 
since he has a robust constitution; but for the 
good of his head, he ought to be restrained by our 
Lord the Pope from working through the winter 
in the sacristy, the air of which is bad for him; 
and for his heart, the best remedy would be if his 
Holiness could accommodate matters with the Duke 
of Urbino.” In a second letter, of October 8, Mini 
insists again upon the necessity of freeing Michel- 
angelo’s mind from his anxieties. The upshot was 
that Clement, on the 21st of November, addressed 
a brief to his sculptor, whereby Buonarroti was 
ordered, under pain of excommunication, to lay 
aside all work except what was strictly necessary 
for the Medicean monuments, and to take better 
care of his health.” On the 26th of the same month 
Benvenuto della Volpaia wrote, repeating what the 
Pope had written in his brief, and adding that his 
Holiness desired him to select some workshop more 
convenient for his health than the cold and cheer- 
less sacristy.’ 

In spite of Clement’s orders that Michelangelo 
should confine himself strictly to working on the 
Medicean monuments, he continued to be solicited 
with various commissions. ‘Thus the Cardinal Cybo 


* Mini mentions in particular headache, chronic cold, and giddiness, 
2 Bottari, Lett. Prtt., vi. 54. 3 Gotti, i. p. 211. 


454 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


wrote in December begging him to furnish a design 
for a tomb which he intended to erect. Whether 
Michelangelo consented is not known. 

Karly in December Sebastiano resumed his com- 
munications on the subject of the tomb of Julius, 
saying that Michelangelo must not expect to satisty 
the Duke without executing the work, in part at 
least, himself. ‘There is no one but yourself that 
harms you: I mean, your eminent fame and the 
greatness of your works. I do not say this to flatter 
you. Therefore, I am of opinion that, without some 
shadow of yourself, we shall never induce those 
parties to do what we want. It seems to me that 
you might easily make designs and models, and 
afterwards assign the completion to any master 
whom you choose. But the shadow of yourself 
there must be. If you take the matter in this way, 
it will be a trifle; you will do nothing, and seem 
to do all; but remember that the work must be 
carried out under your shadow.” 

A series of despatches, forwarded between De- 
cember 4, 1531, and April 29, 1532, by Giovan 
Maria della Porta to the Duke of Urbino, con- 
firm the particulars furnished by the letters which 
Sebastiano still continued to write from Rome.” At 
the end of 1531 Michelangelo expressed his anxiety 
to visit Rome, now that the negotiations with the 
Duke were nearly complete. Sebastiano, hearing 
this, replies: “You will effect more in half an 

Les Correspondants, p. 74. 2 See Vasari, xii. 378-383. 


CONTRACT FOR THE TOMB, 1532. 455 


hour than I can do in a whole year. I believe that 
you will arrange everything after two words with 
his Holiness ; for our Lord is anxious to meet your 
wishes.”’ He wanted to be present at the drawing 
up and signing of the contract. Clement, however, 
although he told Sebastiano that he should be glad 
to see him, hesitated to send the necessary per- 
mission, and it was not until the month of April 
1532 that he set out. About the 6th, as appears from 
the indorsement of a letter received in his absence, 
he must have reached Rome. The new contract 
was not ready for signature before the 29th, and 
on that date Michelangelo left for Florence, having, 
as he says, been sent off by the Pope in a hurry on 
the very day appointed for its execution. In his 
absence it was duly signed and witnessed before 
Clement; the Cardinals Gonzaga and da Monte 
and the Lady Felice della Rovere attesting, while 
Giovan Maria della Porta and Girolamo Staccoli 
acted for the Duke of Urbino. When Michelangelo 
returned and saw the instrument, he found that 
several clauses prejudicial to his interests had been 
inserted by the notary.” ‘I discovered more than 
1000 ducats charged unjustly to my debit, also the 
house in which I live, and certain other hooks and 
crooks to ruin me. The Pope would certainly not 
have tolerated this knavery, as Fra Sebastiano can 


1 Les Correspondants, p. 78. 
2 Lettere, No. cdxxxv. p. 489. Written in October 1542, when the 
tragedy of the tomb was entering upon its final phase. 


456 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


bear witness, since he wished me to complain to 
Clement and have the notary hanged. I swear I 
never received the moneys which Giovan Maria 
della Porta wrote against me, and caused to be 
engrossed upon the contract.” ? 

It is difficult to understand why Michelangelo 
should not have immediately taken measures to 
rectify these errors. He seems to have been well 
aware that he was bound to refund 2000 ducats, 
since the only letter from his pen belonging to 
the year 1532 is one dated May, and addressed to 
Andrea Quarantesi in Pisa. In this document he 
consults Quarantesi about the possibility of raising 
that sum, with 1000 ducats in addition. “It was 
in my mind, in order that I might not be left naked, 
to sell houses and possessions, and to let the lira 
go for ten soldi.”? As the contract was never carried 
out, the fraudulent passages inserted in the deed 
did not prove of practical importance. Della Porta, 
on his part, wrote in high spirits to his master :°* 
“Yesterday we executed the new contract with 
Michelangelo, for the ratification of which by your 


1 According to this contract, Michelangelo acknowledged to have 
received 8000 ducats-in various payments, and promised to finish the 
tomb at his own expense, disbursing in addition 2000 ducats, in which 
sum his house at the Macello de’ Corvi was included. Lettere, pp. 
702, 703. 

* Lettere, No, cdx. It is possible that the words written upon the 
back of a drawing at Oxford, Andrea abbi patientia—A me m’é consola- 
tione assat, may have been drawn forth from him by the anxieties of 
this year, | 

8 Vasari, xii. 380. The despatch is dated April 30. 


DETAILS OF THE CONTRACT. 457 


Lordship we have fixed a limit of two months. It 
is of a nature to satisfy all Rome, and reflects great 
credit on your Lordship for the trouble you have 
taken in concluding it. Michelangelo, who shows a 
very proper respect for your Lordship, has promised 
to make and send you a design. Among other 
items, I have bound him to furnish six statues by 
his own hand, which will be a world in themselves, 
because they are sure to be incomparable. The 
rest he may have finished by some sculptor at his 
own choice, provided the work is done under his 
direction. The Pope allows him to come twice a 
year to Rome, for periods of two months each, in 
order to push the work forward. And he is to 
execute the whole at his own costs.” He proceeds 
to say, that since the tomb cannot be put up in 
S. Peter’s, S. Pietro in Vincoli has been selected 
as the most suitable church. It appears that the 
Duke’s ratification was sent upon the 5th of June, 
and placed in the hands of Clement, so that Michel- 
angelo probably did not see it for some months. 
Della Porta, writing to the Duke again upon the 
19th of June, says that Clement promised to allow 
Michelangelo to come to Rome in the winter, and 
to reside there working at the tomb. But we have 
no direct information concerning his doings after 
the return to Florence at the end of April 1532. 

It will be worth while to introduce Condivi's ac- 
count of these transactions relating to the tomb 
of Julius, since it throws some light upon the sculp- 


458 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


tor’s private feelings and motives, as well as upon 
the falsification of the contract as finally engrossed.’ 

‘When Michelangelo had been called to Rome 
by Pope Clement, he began to be harassed by the 
agents of the Duke of Urbino about the sepulchre 
of Julius. Clement, who wished to employ him in 
Florence, did all he could to set him free, and gave 
him for his attorney in this matter Messer Tommaso 
da Prato, who was afterwards datary. Michelangelo, 
however, knowing the evil disposition of Duke 
Alessandro towards him, and being in great dread 
on this account, also because he bore love and 
reverence to the memory of Pope Julius and to the 
illustrious house of Della Rovere, strained every 
nerve to remain in Rome and busy himself about 
the tomb. What made him more anxious was that 
every one accused him of having received from Pope 
Julius at least 16,000 crowns, and of having spent 
them on himself without fulfilling his engagements. 
Being a man sensitive about his reputation, he 
could not bear the dishonour of such reports, and 
wanted the whole matter to be cleared up; nor, 
although he was now old, did he shrink from the 
very onerous task of completing what he had begun 
so long ago. Consequently they came to strife 
together, and his antagonists were unable to prove 
payments to anything like the amount which had 
first been noised abroad; indeed, on the contrary, 
more than two thirds of the whole sum first stipu- 

1 Condivi, pp. 54-57. 


CONDIVI’S SUMMARY. 489 


lated by the two Cardinals was wanting. Clement 
then thinking he had found an excellent opportu- 
nity for setting him at liberty and making use of 
his whole energies, called Michelangelo to him, and 
said: ‘Come, now, confess that you want to make 
this tomb, but wish to know who will pay you the 
balance. Michelangelo, knowing well that the 
Pope was anxious to employ him on his own work, 
answered: ‘Supposing some one is found to pay 
me. To which Pope Clement: ‘ You are a great 
fool if you let yourself believe that any one will 
come forward to offer you a farthing.’ Accordingly, 
his attorney, Messer Tommaso, and the agents of the 
Duke, after some negotiations, came to an agree- 
ment that a tomb should at least be made for the 
amount he had received. Michelangelo, thinking the 
matter had arrived at a good conclusion, consented 
with alacrity. He was much influenced by the elder 
Cardinal di Monte, who owed his advancement to 
Julius II., and was uncle of Julius III., our present 
Pope by grace of God. The arrangement was as 
follows: That he should make a tomb of one fagade 
only; should utilise those marbles which he had 
already blocked out for the quadrangular monument, 
adapting them as well as circumstances allowed; 
and finally, that he should be bound to furnish six 
statues by his own hand. In spite of this arrange- 
ment, Pope Clement was allowed to employ Michel- 
angelo in Florence or where he liked during four 
months of the year, that being required by his 


460 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Holiness for his undertakings at S. Lorenzo. Such 
then was the contract made between the Duke and 
Michelangelo. But here it has to be observed, that 
after all accounts had been made up, Michelangelo 
secretly agreed with the agents of his Excellency 
that it should be reported that he had received some 
thousands of crowns above what had been paid to 
him; the object being to make his obligation to 
the Duke of Urbino seem more considerable, and 
to discourage Pope Clement from sending him to 
Florence, whither he was extremely unwilling to go. 
This acknowledgment was not only bruited about 
in words, but, without his knowledge or consent, 
was also inserted into the deed; not when this was 
drawn up, but when it was engrossed ; a falsifica- 
tion which caused Michelangelo the utmost vexation. 
The ambassador, however, persuaded him that this 
would do him no real harm: it did not signify, he 
said, whether the contract specified a thousand or 
twenty thousand crowns, seeing they were agreed 
that the tomb should be reduced to suit the sums 
actually received; adding, that nobody was con- 
cerned in the matter except himself, and that 
Michelangelo might feel safe with him on account 
of the understanding between them. Upon this 
Michelangelo grew easy in his mind, partly because 
he thought he might have confidence, and partly 
because he wished the Pope to receive the impres- 
sion I have described above. In this way the thing 
was settled for the time, but it did not end there ; 


ALESSANDRO DE’ MEDICI. 461 


for when he had worked his four months in Florence 
and came back to Rome, the Pope set him to other 
tasks, and ordered him to paint the wall above the 
altar in the Sistine Chapel. He was a man of ex- 
cellent judgment in such matters, and had meditated 
many different subjects for this fresco. At last he 
fixed upon the Last Judgment, considering that the 
variety and greatness of the theme would enable 
the illustrious artist to exhibit his powers in their 
full extent. Michelangelo, remembering the obliga- 
tion he was under to the Duke of Urbino, did all 
he could to evade this new engagement; but when 
this proved impossible, he began to procrastinate, 
and, pretending to be fully occupied with the car- 
toons for his huge picture, he worked in secret at 
the statues intended for the monument.” 


VIL. 


Michelangelo’s position at Florence was insecure 
and painful, owing to the undisguised animosity of 
the Duke Alessandro. This man ruled like a tyrant 
of the worst sort, scandalising good citizens by his 
brutal immoralities, and terrorising them by his 
cruelties. ‘He remained,” says Condivi, “in con- 
tinual alarm; because the Duke, a young man, as 
is known to every one, of ferocious and revengeful 
temper, hated him exceedingly. ‘here is no doubt 


462 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


that, but for the Pope’s protection, he would have 
been removed from this world. What added to 
Alessandro’s enmity was that when he was planning 
the fortress which he afterwards erected, he sent 
Messer Vitelli for Michelangelo, ordering him to 
ride with them, and to select a proper position for 
the building. Michelangelo refused, saying that he 
had received no commission from the Pope. The 
Duke waxed very wroth; and so, through this new 
grievance added to old grudges and the notorious 
nature of the Duke, Michelangelo not unreasonably 
lived in fear. It was certainly by God's aid that 
he happened to be away from Florence when 
Clement died.”? Michelangelo was bound under 
solemn obligations to execute no work but what 
the Pope ordered for himself or permitted by the 
contract with the heirs of Julius. Therefore he 
acted in accordance with duty when he refused to 
advise the tyrant in this scheme for keeping the 
city under permanent subjection. The man who 
had fortified Florence against the troops of Clement 
could not assist another bastard Medici to build a 
strong place for her ruin. It may be to this period 
of his life that we owe the following madrigal, 
written upon the loss of Florentine liberty and the 
bad conscience of the despot :*— 


1 Condivi, p. 51. Compare Vasari, xii, 215. See Varchi, Stor. Fior., 
jii. 43, for the commencement of this fortress, the foundations of which 
were laid upon the 27th of May 1533. 

2 Rime, p. 25. 


RECOVERY OF A FORCED LOAN. 463 


Lady, for joy of lovers numberless 
Thou wast created fair as angels are. 
Sure God hath fallen asleep in heaven afar 
When one man calls the bliss of many his ! 
Give back to streaming eyes 
The daylight of thy face, that seems to shun 
Those who must live defrauded of their bliss ! 


Vex not your pure desire with tears and sighs: 
For he who robs you of my light hath none. 
Dwelling in fear, sin hath no happiness ; 
Since, amid those who love, their joy is less, 
Whose great desire great plenty still curtails, 
Than theirs who, poor, have hope that never fails, 


During the siege Michelangelo had been forced 
to lend the Signory a sum of about 1500 ducats.’ 
In the summer of 1533 he corresponded with 
Sebastiano about means for recovering this loan. 
On the 16th of August Sebastiano writes that he 
has referred the matter to the Pope.” ‘TI repeat, 
what I have already written, that I presented your 
memorial to his Holiness. It was about eight in 
the evening, and the Florentine ambassador was 
present. The Pope then ordered the ambassador 
to write immediately to the Duke; and this he did 
with such vehemence and passion as | do not think 
he has displayed on four other occasions concerning 
the affairs of Florence. His rage and fury were 
tremendous, and the words he used to the am- 
bassador would stupefy you, could you hear them. 


1 Lettere, No. cdvii. Was this perhaps levied for his contumacy in 
the flight to Venice ? 
2 Les Correspondants, p. 112. 


464 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


Indeed, they are not fit to be written down, and | 
must reserve them for viva voce. I burn to have 
half an hour’s conversation with you, for now I 
know our good and holy master to the ground. 
Enough, I think you must have already seen some- 
thing of the sort. In brief, he has resolved that 
you are to be repaid the 400 ducats of the guardian- 
ship and the 500 ducats lent to the old Govern- 
ment.” It may be readily imagined that this 
restitution of a debt incurred by Florence when 
she was fighting for her liberties, to which act of 
justice her victorious tyrant was compelled by his 
Papal kinsman, did not soften Alessandro’s bad feel- 
ing for the creditor. 

Several of Sebastiano’s letters during the summer 
and autumn of 1533 refer to an edition of some 
madrigals by Michelangelo, which had been set to 
music by Bartolommeo Tromboncino, Giacomo Archa- 
delt, and Costanzo Festa.” We have every reason 
to suppose that the period we have now reached was 
the richest in poetical compositions. It was also 
in 1532 or 1533 that he formed the most passionate 
attachment of which we have any knowledge in his 
life; for he became acquainted about this time with 


1 “T,i ducati 400 del pupillo.” Perhaps this sum had been lent to 
the Ufficiali dei Pupilli. See Capponi, vol. i. p. 648. With regard to 
the Pope’s rages, we may remember what Cellini says of him: “ Veduto 
io il papa diventato cosi una pessima bestia.” Lib. i, cap. 58. 

2 Les Correspondants, pp. 108-112. Compare Lettere, No, cdxv., in 
which Michelangelo acknowledges the receipt of them, Gotti, vol. ii. 
pp. 89-122, publishes an interesting essay on this music by Leto Puliti, 
together with the score of three madrigals. 


YEARS 1532-1534. 465 


Tommaso Cavalieri. A few years later he was des- 
tined to meet with Vittoria Colonna. The details 
of these two celebrated friendships will be discussed 
in another chapter. 

Clement VII. journeyed from Rome in September, 
intending to take ship at Leghorn for Nice and after- 
wards Marseilles, where his young cousin, Caterina 
de’ Medici, was married to the Dauphin. He had 
to pass through S. Miniato al Tedesco, and thither 
Michelangelo went to wait upon him on the 22nd.) 
This was the last, and not the least imposing, 
public act of the old Pope, who, six years after his 
imprisonment and outrage in the Castle of S. Angelo, 
was now wedding a daughter of his plebeian family 
to the heir of the French crown. What passed 
between Michelangelo and his master on this occa- 
sion is not certain. 

The years 1532-1534 form a period of consider- 
able chronological perplexity in Michelangelo’s life. 
This is in great measure due to the fact that he was 
now residing regularly part of the year in Rome and 
part in Florence. We have good reason to believe 
that he went to Rome in September 1532, and stayed 
there through the winter.? It is probable that he 
then formed the friendship with Cavalieri, which 
played so important a part in his personal history. 

1 See Ricordo in Lettere, p. 604. 

2 Angelini’s letter indorsed “le lettere de dugento ducati” (see 
Appendix), Norchiato’s about a translation of Vitruvius (date Dee. 7, 
1532, Arch. Buon., Cod. x. 582), Stephano’s about the lantern of the 


Sacristy (Arch Buon., Cod. x1. 713), lead to this conclusion, 


VOL. 1. eats 


466 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


A brisk correspondence carried on between him and 
his two friends, Bartolommeo Angelini and Sebas- 
tiano del Piombo, shows that he resided at Florence 
during the summer and early autumn of 1533. From 
a letter addressed to Figiovanni on the 15th of 
October, we learn that he was then impatient to 
leave Florence for Rome. But a Ricordo, bearing 
date Oct. 29, 1533, renders it almost certain that he 
had not then started.! Angelini’s letters. which had 
been so frequent, stop suddenly in that month.” 
This renders it almost certain that Michelangelo 
must have soon returned to Rome. Strangely enough 
there are no letters or Ricordi in his handwriting 
which bear the date 1534. When we come to deal 
with this year, 1534, we learn from Michelangelo's 
own statement to Vasari that he was in Florence 
during the summer, and that he reached Rome two 
days before the death of Clement VII., z.e., upon 
September 23.° Condivi observes that it was lucky 
for him that the Pope did not die while he was still 
at Florence, else he would certainly have been 
exposed to great peril, and probably been murdered 
or imprisoned by Duke Alessandro.* 

Nevertheless, Michelangelo was again in Florence 
toward the close of 1534. An undated letter to a 
certain Febo (di Poggio) confirms this supposition. 

1 Lettere, pp. 470, 604. 

2 [ shall print all Angelini’s letters in the Appendix. Angelini’s last 
dated letter is Oct. 18. 


3 Lettere, No. cdlxxxii, written in May 1557. 
4 Condivi, p. 51. 


LODOVICO’S DEATH. 467 


It may probably be referred to the month of Decem- 
ber. In it he says that he means to leave Florence 
next day for Pisa and Rome, and that he shall never 
return.’ Febo’s answer, addressed to Rome, is dated 
Jan. 14, 1534, which, according to Florentine reckon- 
ing, means 1535.” 

We may take it, then, as sufficiently weil ascer- 
tained that Michelangelo departed from Florence 
before the end of 1534, and that he never returned 
during the remainder of his life. There is left, 
however, another point of importance referring to 
this period, which cannot be satisfactorily cleared 
up. We do not know the exact date of his father, 
Lodovico’s, death. It must have happened either in 
1533 or in 1534. In spite of careful researches, no 
record of the event has yet been discovered, either 
at Settignano or in the public offices of Florence. 
The documents of the Buonarroti family yield no direct 
information on the subject. We learn, however, from 
the Libri delle Eta, preserved at the Archivio di 
Stato, that Lodovico di Lionardo di Buonarrota 
Simoni was born upon the 11th of June 1444.° 
Now Michelangelo, in his poem on Lodovico’s death, 
says very decidedly that his father was ninety when 


1 Lettere, No. cdxx. Milanesi assigns it to the year 1533. But the 
date of Febo’s answer makes this impossible. Besides, we have seen 
above that he must have gone to Rome at the end of Oct. 1533. 

2 This letter I shall print inthe Appendix. It will be fully discussed 
in chapter x1i. 

3 Libro 3 delle Eta, in the Arch. delle Tratte, fol. 109, and Libro 2, 
p. 92, tergo. This information I owe to the Cay. G, Biagi. 


468 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO. 


he breathed his last. If we take this literally, it 
must be inferred that he died after the middle of 
June 1534. ‘There are many reasons for supposing. 
that Michelangelo was in Florence when this hap- 
pened. The chief of these is that no correspondence 
passed between the Buonarroti brothers on the occa- 
sion, while Michelangelo’s minutes regarding the ex- 
penses of his father’s burial seem to indicate that he 
was personally responsible for their disbursement.’ I 
may finally remark that the schedule of property 
belonging to Michelangelo, recorded under the year 
1534 in the archives of the Decima at Florence, makes 
no reference at all to Lodovico.? We conclude from 
it that, at the time of its redaction, Michelangelo 
must have succeeded to his father’s estate.’ 

The death of Lodovico and Buonarroto, happening 
within a space of little more than five years, pro- 
foundly affected Michelangelo’s mind, and left an 
indelible mark of sadness on his life. One of his 
best poems, a capitolo, or piece of verse in terza ruma 
stanzas, was written on the occasion of his father’s 
decease.* In it he says that Ludovico had reached 


1 See Gotti, ii. p. 81. . 

2 It is published by Gaye, ii. 253. No other extant documents throw 
much light on the matter. 

3 It only remains to add that, considering Michelangelo left Florence 
for good at the end of 1534, and that Lodovico must have died before 
that date, two letters written to Giovan Simone (which Milanesi assigns 
to 1532, 1533) were probably sent at the end of 1534. They are Lettere, 
Nos. exviii., exix. Both refer to Mona Margherita, an old servant, whe 
had been left to Buonarroti’s care by his father on his deathbed. 

$ Rime, pp. 297-301. 


POEM ON LODOVICO’S DEATH. 46g 


the age of ninety. If this statement be literally 
accurate, the old man must have died in 1534, since 
he was born upon the 11th of June 1444. But up 
to the present time, as I have observed above, the 
exact date of his death has not been discovered. 
One passage of singular and solemn beauty may be 
translated from the original :— 


Thou’rt dead of dying, and art made divine, 
Nor fearest now to change or life or will; 
Scarce without envy can I call this thine. 
Fortune and time beyond your temple-sill 
Dare not advance, by whom is dealt for us 
A doubtful gladness, and too certain ill. 
Cloud is there none to dim you glorious: 
The hours distinct compel you not to fade: 
Nor chance nor fate o’er you are tyrannous. 
Your splendour with the night sinks not in shade, 
Nor grows with day, howe’er that sun ride high, 
Which on our mortal hearts life’s heat hath rayed. 
Thus from thy dying I now learn to die, 
Dear father mine! In thought I see thy place, 
Where earth but rarely lets men climb the sky. 
Not, as some deem, is death the worst disgrace 
For one whose last day brings him to the first, 
The next eternal throne to God’s by grace. 
There by God’s grace I trust that thou art nursed, 
And hope to find thee, if but my cold heart 
High reason draw from earthly slime accursed. 


END OF VOL. 1. 


Printed in Great Britain by R. & R. Crarx, Liwirep, Edinburgh. 





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